Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Awakening
by Maileesaeya
Summary: Kira Yamato's life had seemed so normal. But then a friend from his childhood returns and ZAFT attacks his home colony of Heliopolis in order to steal five prototype mobile weapons. Now thrust onto the frontlines of the Bloody Valentine War, Kira must rely on friends new, old, and forgotten in order to survive. And all the while, a forgotten legacy awaits: Divinity has awoken…
1. The Bonds of Childhood

**Oh, how the times have changed.**

 **Hello readers, both new and old, and welcome to** _ **Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Awakening**_ **, the reboot for an old fanfic series of mine that was dubbed the "Divinity Saga." The original never saw total completion, for a variety of reasons, and ever since then, I've wanted to do this reboot. Two different reboots got started, but neither one made it very far. Clearly, I'm hoping third time's the charm.**

 **Granted, I should probably have bigger concerns relating to the fact that I've practically fallen off the face of the earth. I've been attending college, and that plus the rest of my life has left me with little time for fanfiction. But after a breakdown a few months back, I resolved to return to my writing. Which leads me to this next bit I'm going to say before the story begins:**

 **At the end of the day, I really am writing this for myself. I enjoy writing. It is my passion and my relief. While I sincerely hope that anyone reading will enjoy this, while I hope to deliver an excellent story for people to enjoy, and while I hope to avoid the pitfalls I've found so common to me... I won't stress over it. Doing so impedes my ability to write and both my physical and emotional health. If I write a Mary Sue, then I apologize for having done so. If that Mary Sue rips away your ability to enjoy the story, then I sincerely apologize for that as well. But I'm not going to tear myself up trying religiously to avoid doing so, and it is my hope that everyone can enjoy the good with the bad. But at the end of the day, if I can't enjoy writing this, then I shouldn't write in the first place.**

 **That out of the way, let us move on to the first chapter, a prologue to the main story. I introduce characters here and setup changes within the setting and canon characters. The action begins next chapter.**

 **And let me just say in advance that there is a scene in which two characters discuss sex; if you find this to be a terrible thing, then you should probably leave. The views expressed by the characters are pretty close to my own, and I apologize for that author tract, but at the end of the day, I take issue with the idea that graphic violence, blood and gore is somehow more acceptable for minors than half a second of minor nudity.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam SEED or any of the associated characters or mecha. I claim ownership for the OCs in this chapter, as follows: Makoto Arata, Naomi Arata, Sora and Ayane Honda, Misako Miyamura (though these last three are expies of anime characters), and the "Imperial Family" characters.**

 **Note: Dialogue that is underlined, "** **like this,** **" is being spoken in a non-English language, usually (but not always) Japanese. In this chapter, characters are only speaking in English or Japanese.**

 **PS: This was originally titled** _ **Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Divinity**_ **. I later changed it to a name I thought worked a bit better.**

* * *

Heat was the most noticeable part of the experience. Not surprising, really. Even though they sat in machines with heat shielding encased in a pod with even better heat shielding, they were still making a semi-controlled descent into the atmosphere. At the velocity required to perform atmospheric interface, the friction was absolutely enormous even in the thinnest layer of the atmosphere, so of course there was a lot of heat as the bottom of the pod pierced the outer layers and started to wear away under the friction.

" _First layer traversed,_ " came a calm, female voice over the comm. line. The voice was young, but completely professional." _Decelerate to mach four. Trajectory good. Twenty-eight seconds until termination of cooling stage. Commence aerodynamic control. All squadrons, report in._ "

" _This is Alpha One. Confirming weapons loaded and ready to fire._ "

" _Bravo Two._ "

" _Charlie Three._ "

" _Delta Four._ "

" _Echo Two._ "

" _Foxtrot Four._ "

" _Golf One._ "

She tuned out the voices as the squadrons continued to call in. She was part of Foxtrot Squadron, and her most important duty was surviving the descent.

" _Second layer traversed,_ " said Alpha One. " _We're about to deal a severe blow to those still clinging to the planet's surface._ " Her stomach twisted at that—if they let it become about vengeance, then they'd all lose sight of what was truly important.

" _Can it Alpha One,_ " came the voice of the controller. " _This is about protecting our homeland, not revenge._ " The squad leader had no reply other than to continue transmitting back the descent force status.

" _Last layer of turbulence… decelerating to mach zero point nine. Cooling stage ceased, altitude good. May fortune smile upon us. Activating program descent coordinates! Okay… here we go! For ZAFT!_ "

" _For ZAFT!_ "

" _For ZAFT!_ "

As one, the pods blew apart, releasing the mechanical giants within, four to each pod. The cyclopean camera eyes all lit at once as they prepared for battle.

In orbit, the fleet-wide flight control officer quietly removed her headset, no longer able to maintain contact with the forces now on Earth through the jamming interference. With everyone else focused on the display screens and tactical boards showing what data they could get on the battle below, none noticed the tears that floated from her eyes.

* * *

" _Year 70 of the Cosmic Era: tensions were mounting between Earth and the ZAFT organization. Due to the Bloody Valentine Tragedy, these tensions suddenly escalated into a full-scale war. It seemed a foregone conclusion that the Earth Forces, with its superior numbers, would be victorious. But these initial assessments proved to be false. Almost eleven months have passed since the conflict began… with no end in sight."_

* * *

First Phase: The Bonds of Childhood  
January 6th, C.E. 71

* * *

Heliopolis, Colony of the Orb Union, Lagrange Point 3

Kira Yamato sighed slightly, staring skyward from his seat in the elecar. Not that there was an actual sky on a space colony like Heliopolis—just giant glass window strips through which a mirror would reflect sunlight and the stars were just barely visible. His mom, sitting in the driver's seat, gave him a brief glance before looking forward again.

Well, Caridad Yamato wasn't actually his mother, but his aunt. Kira's actual mother, Caridad's older sister Via, had died when he was just a baby and Caridad had raised him like her own. But she was his mother in every way that really mattered to them. Kira glanced at her, idly thinking to himself that she really was too young to be his birth-mother, being only thirty-one years old and looking it—fairly tall, with long dark hair and dark eyes, Caridad was a striking woman with a keen intellect.

Kira was only fifteen years old himself, a few months from turning sixteen. He was a bit short at five foot five, with a very slight frame and slender facial features that made him look even younger than he really was. He had short, messy brown hair and dark violet eyes.

Kira's idle thoughts about his immediate family history originated from the very reason they were in the elecar headed to the port—to pick up a visitor who would be spending about three weeks with them. He had a very vague memory of the person in question, a girl with whom he'd been playmates for a short while. Their parents had been friends since long before either of them had been born and something had happened recently that prompted her to take a vacation. With the war between the Earth Forces and ZAFT in full swing, however, that left only two real vacation spots away from the Orb mainland: the lunar city of Copernicus and Heliopolis. Since she actually knew someone, however distantly, on the latter, she'd contacted them and asked if she could stay with them for a few weeks.

With another small sigh, Kira leaned back in his seat slightly, running a hand through his hair in a futile effort to get it to stay in place despite the air rushing by as they drove, idly wishing there were elecars that weren't open-roofed.

* * *

Heliopolis Spaceport

Makoto Arata let out a faint sigh as she stood waiting in the pick-up area.

A young woman just a few months shy of sixteen, this was the first time she'd left the Orb Homeland. Space travel was weird and even on the colony her balance felt off, conflicting with all the training she'd undergone over the last six months or so. Even as part of her felt annoyed, another part appreciated it, since she'd come up here largely because of that training.

Despite her tender age, Makoto had just come out of half a year of military training. In Orb, legal adulthood and draft age were sixteen years. The country maintained a strong, but ultimately small military that they'd swell with pre-trained recruits in the event of war. Being a small island country with a purely defensive policy, a war would mean they were being invaded and didn't have time to train soldiers. Hence, military training was mandatory for a percentage of the population, usually started shortly after a potential recruit turned fifteen. After completing the rigorous basic boot camp, which could last anywhere from six months to two years, the trainee would be given leave from school to recover.

Having completed her training in only about seven months, Makoto was given two months and, wanting to get away for a little while, she'd elected to take a few weeks' vacation to Heliopolis, partially to visit space for the first time and partially to reconnect with the Yamatos.

Wanting to make a good impression, especially with her former playmate, she looked over herself again.

Makoto was a pretty girl, tall at five foot seven and still growing, with a curvy figure and prominent breasts (which she was rather proud of—who didn't love large, soft boobs after all?). Her straight, deep red hair fell to around mid-back, but her most striking feature was her eyes: Makoto was heterochromic, with a green left eye and a blue right eye, the only phenotypic hint of her Coordinator status, even if she was one of noticeably less ability than most others. She was dressed in a white summer dress with red frills on the knee-length skirt, wearing short heels with thigh-length black socks.

All in all, she thought she looked pretty good. Sure, the dress wasn't her preferred attire, but in this alien situation, she found herself falling back on the more conservative appearance it offered. With another small sigh, the teen looked skyward, towards the glass strips, desperately wishing for her nervousness to just up and vanish.

Right. She should be so lucky.

The sound of an approaching vehicle drew Makoto's attention back to the road just as an elecar pulled up. Sitting inside, she recognized Caridad Yamato from the picture her mother had shown her, though it had been from more than a decade ago. In the passenger seat was a brunet teenager who she guessed was Kira. Grabbing her bag, Makoto walked over to the car.

"Hello, Yamato-sensei," she said with a small bow. "I'm Arata Makoto. It's a pleasure to meet you." Caridad smiled at the girl.

"You really are Naomi's," she said softly. Makoto was a bit struck by the informality with which Caridad referred to her mother, but then again, Naomi Arata had spoken the same way of Caridad. "It's been so long Makoto-chan. You've really grown up." Makoto started slightly at the familiarity, but then gave a small smile before turning towards Kira and bowing slightly.

"It's nice to meet you, Miss Arata," said Kira politely. The redhead started again, a bit jarred by him using English instead of Japanese. Caridad just shook her head and turned to Kira.

"Why don't you help Makoto-chan with her bags, Kira?" she asked, though it sounded more like a polite order to Kira, who obediently stepped out of the car.

"Thank you very much, Yamato-san," said Makoto formally with a small smile.

* * *

Yamato Residence  
Half an hour later

The drive back home had been quiet, with Makoto looking absolutely exhausted and spending what little energy she had observing. Kira still wasn't sure what to make of her: she was a very pretty girl and unfailingly polite, but she was so formal that she seemed almost stiff to him.

"I thank you for your hospitality," said Makoto, focusing on Caridad as she slipped off her shoes and stepped out of the entryway.

"You're welcome," said Caridad with a kind smile. "You should be aware that people primarily use English up here. You may want to make the effort as well."

"Ah… yes… of… course…"

Now it was Kira's turn to start a bit, surprised by the sound of her voice in English, mostly because there was no hint of the accent he'd expect from someone speaking their second language.

"My apologies, Yamato-sensei," said Makoto, bowing once again. "I'm so used to everyone using Japanese, I'd forgotten that it wasn't the case on Heliopolis."

"That's quite alright," said Caridad. "Tell me, how is Naomi doing?"

"Mother?" Makoto blinked a bit. "She's doing well. She just recently got promoted to manager for Aizawa Yumiko-sama."

"The idol singer?" asked Kira. Makoto nodded.

"And how about yourself?" The redhead shrugged in response to Caridad's question.

"I'm okay," she said. "I just got out of basic."

"Oh… _oh_ …" Now Kira understood why Makoto was here. The girl gave them a weak smile.

"It wasn't a pleasant experience," she said. "Be glad you don't ever have to deal with it." Kira glanced away. Caridad shook her head slightly.

"Make yourself at home," she said quietly. "Take your time."

"Thank you very much."

* * *

The next day

After Makoto had slept off her trip, Kira had agreed to show her around Heliopolis and introduce her to his friends. Caridad was grateful for it. She didn't have work that day, so she was now alone in her house, giving her time to think.

She'd been trying to avoid thinking ever since she'd been contacted by Naomi about Makoto coming up to visit. She was sure that her childhood friend had ulterior motives for recommending Makoto visit Heliopolis, but what those might be varied wildly with how much the girl knew about her own past. While it was blatantly obvious that she was adopted, Caridad had no idea if Naomi had told Makoto about the unusual circumstances of it.

If Makoto knew, then she was likely here as much to learn what Caridad knew of her biological family as anything. It was Caridad who'd brought an infant Makoto to Naomi, asking her childhood friend to take care of the girl as her own. Caridad would have her hands full just being a single mother for her nephew.

Besides, she'd thought it would be better if the two were at least somewhat separate from each other. Their parents had had a lot of enemies, after all. It was part of why Caridad opted to move away from Naomi and Makoto. While never one to really enjoy running, that part of her past was something she was determined to escape. She'd left her old career, her passion, in favor of running, escaping, making sure the past would never be able to catch up to her, to Kira, to Makoto…

But now that Makoto was here, she had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. She remembered—she remembered all-too-well that pivotal research Makoto had unknowingly been involved in. She knew what it might mean, for Kira and Makoto to be near each other.

She just hoped they'd all been complete fools who were wrong about everything, instead of mere fools who'd done something completely idiotic. Because if even half of the research had been correct, then Caridad was terrified for her son's future.

* * *

Meanwhile

There had been a bit of awkwardness in showing Makoto around. For one thing, Kira was a bit shy by nature, so he rarely spoke to those outside his normal circle of friends. For another, Makoto was feeling awkward in the alien environment, and would occasionally start at the relaxed and informal attitude of the people around her.

It didn't help that her intense red hair drew attention, or that her heterochromia made her standout even more to anyone who got close enough to see, as it was unusual even for Coordinators, though still much more common than among Naturals.

Still, things eventually improved. Makoto had finally begun to relax when Kira had become more comfortable, specifically when he introduced her to his friends, Sai Argyle and Kuzzey Buskirk. But it was only when the pair encountered Flay Allster that Kira got to really see a bit of who Makoto was.

"Hey, do you think that dress would look good on me?"

The voice drew Kira's attention to a trio of girls standing outside a clothing store in the shopping district. The one in the middle who'd asked about the dress they were staring at was a petite teenage girl, perhaps five foot four inches tall, with vibrant red hair and gray-blue eyes. Her appearance struck Makoto, particularly the red hair almost the same shade as her own because it was so unusual. She quickly processed the rest of the girl's appearance—generous bust and hip curves for her petite frame and likely long legs judging from where her skirt started. She was wearing a simple red t-shirt with a flowing, angle-length black skirt.

Makoto's eyes then quickly took in the girl's friends. One was a short brunette with her hair worn in pigtails who was even more petite than the redhead. Makoto just picked out her warm brown eyes, and she was wearing a white shirt and cutoff blue jeans. The other girl had short, messy black hair and was just slightly shorter than the redhead. Makoto observed large green eyes set in a fairly androgynous face, and she was wearing a black t-shirt with a frilled beige skirt.

Makoto glanced back and forth between Kira and the three girls before she followed Kira's gaze and frowned slightly, before a faint, mischievous smile formed on her lips as she looked back to the brunet.

"See something you like, Yamato-san?"

Kira started a bit at the question, a blush forming on his features.

"Ah, no, it's not like that!" he said insistently. Unfortunately, his voice drew the attention of the three girls. The brunette and black-haired girl spotted Kira, then suddenly squeaked slightly and stepped a bit behind the last girl.

The redhead, however, barely reacted other than to glance briefly at Makoto before offering a friendly smile to them.

"You're Sai's friend, right?" she said, focusing on the brunet. "Kira, right?"

"Ah, yes, that's right," he said, shifting uncomfortably. Makoto let out a sigh, shaking her head as she stared down at Kira. She glanced at the girls, and it occurred to her that she might seem a bit intimidating, despite her conservative attire, simply because of how much she towered over them.

 _Well, maybe not_ , thought Makoto as the black-haired girl stepped out from behind Flay, vaguely facing Kira but with her eyes down as she smiled shyly.

"Hi, Kira," she said softly.

"Um, hi…?"

Makoto could've slapped him for that response. It was obvious that the girl had a crush on him, the least he could do is be a bit more polite. Unless… she looked at Kira, suddenly wondering if he was so socially awkward that he didn't know.

Suddenly wanting to break the awkward atmosphere, she stepped forward a bit, extending her hand towards the girls.

"So, you know Yamato-san?" she said with a polite smile. "My name's Arata Makoto. I'm visiting from the homeland." The brunette stepped forward at that.

"Is that so? I'm Misha Kaga," she said, shaking Makoto's hand. The other two stepped closer.

"I'm Flay Allster," said the redhead, shaking her hand in turn.

"Jessica Bradford," added the black-haired girl when it was her turn. Makoto smiled at the three.

"It's a pleasure to meet all of you," she said. "I'm afraid Yamato-san is a terrible guide."

"Hey!" said Kira, looking annoyed.

"Oh, I'm sure you're a great guide Kira!" said Misha, turning to him with starry eyes. "Makoto, how can you say such a terrible thing?"

Makoto's smile grew a bit more strained at that. She was suddenly feeling twice as awkward with the familiar way Misha addressed her, and it certainly didn't help that these girls were obviously crushing on Kira. Flay, however, let out a small sigh and grabbed Makoto's hand. The taller redhead let out a tiny cry of shock as she was tugged forward.

"Don't mind them, Miss Arata," said Flay with a friendly smile. "They have no gift for subtlety. So, while they're bothering Kira, would you mind if I asked your opinion on that dress?"

Makoto managed a small giggle. She decided then and there that she liked Flay. She turned to the dress—a cute pink one-piece—and in her mind's eye, envisioned Flay in it. She then quickly stopped thinking when she started to mentally undress the girl, but not before forming an answer to the question.

"I think it would look good on you," she said honestly. The two spent a few minutes talking while Jessica and Misha harassed Kira several feet away, and Makoto was shocked to realize how easy talking to Flay was. She even let slip that her usual attire was much more bold than what she was currently wearing.

After a few minutes, the redheads took pity on Kira and pried Jessica and Misha away, allowing Flay to drag them into the store. Makoto shook her head at Kira's flustered appearance.

"Finally get a hint?" she asked with a mischevious smile.

"… girls are weird."

Makoto wanted to slap him again, but managed to refrain.

"So, Allster-san seems nice," she said, shifting the topic away from the girl's who were crushing on him and towards the girl he seemed to be crushing on, if his look at the start of this meeting was any indication.

"Yeah… Flay really is… nice…"

"Maybe you should ask her out?" suggested Makoto, enjoying Kira's sputtering, blushing reaction. "Nice and attractive teenage girl like that? Got to get all kinds of attention."

"She's got a boyfriend already," said Kira, perhaps a little too quickly. "Besides, she's not that old. I mean, I guess she's technically a teen, but…" Makoto froze.

"Wait… how old is she?" she asked slowly. When Kira gave her an answer, Makoto felt like her jaw was going to hit the ground. "She's only _fourteen_?! With _that_ body?!"

* * *

One week later

Kira sat with Makoto, Sai and Kuzzey in a gazebo in the Heliopolis park, listening idly to Makoto's music player while Kira worked on one of his extra assignments from Professor Kato, listening idly to the others talking. In particular, Sai and Kuzzey were interested in learning more about what life was like in Orb from Makoto, and since Kira himself was interested in her history, she seemed plenty willing to share with them.

"My life's hardly been the model for normal down there," said Makoto with a playful wink. After a week on the colony, she'd become decidedly more relaxed, though still pretty formal. "I mean, even before becoming a big name in the idol industry, mother was rubbing shoulders with powerful people."

"Yeah, how's that?" asked Kuzzey. Makoto shrugged slightly as she reached for the music player.

"Well, it turns out she went to school with Princess Ami Meiou Himemiya…"

Sai spat out some of the soda he'd been drinking—thankfully, not at anyone or anything in the gazebo.

"You're kidding!" sputtered Sai. "Your mom went to school with an Orb _princess_?"

"Yeah," said Kira idly, looking up from his work. "I never brought it up before because I knew how you'd react, but my mom and Makoto's mom went to school with the younger sister of Empress Serenity."

"Of course, back then, Kōgō Heika was only a princess," said Makoto. She looked at Kira. "Mother said they attended middle and high school together. Yamato-sensei was there for all of it, right?" Kira nodded.

"That's what mom said."

"You're kidding," said Kuzzey with a groan. "And you seriously never thought to mention it to us?"

"I didn't think it was a big deal," said Kira. "That was a long time ago, and Princess Ami died before I was even born."

"Still, mother knows people," said Makoto, starting up a new song and setting down her music player. "I got to see the Imperial Family several times growing up, and I'm privileged to call members of two different noble houses my friends. Then there's this." She motioned towards the player, which was currently playing a song that none of the boys were familiar with.

"That's… beautiful," murmured Kira, taken aback a bit.

"Who's the singer?" asked Sai. "I don't recognize her voice."

"That's because she's not an Orb idol. Boys, you're listening to the debut song of Lacus Clyne of the PLANTs."

"Wait, what?!" cried Kuzzey as everyone stared at Makoto. She shrugged again.

"Years ago, Clyne-sama approached the Orb government about acting as a neutral ground for negotiation, back before the PLANTs initiated their embargo. I met Lacus-chan at that time, and we became good friends."

There was a faraway look in Makoto's eyes as she indulged in a moment of nostalgia.

"There were five of us… we were the best of friends, and Lacus-chan was coming to visit us whenever she could. But… well, eventually, things happened, and she couldn't come to visit anymore." Makoto shook her head suddenly. "Sorry, it was just a much happier time for me. I miss those days."

"It's fine," said Kira. "I'd like to hear some of the stories."

"If you insist, but first, I want to hear some stories about you three."

"Fair enough," said Kuzzey, smiling suddenly in a way that made Kira and Sai nervous. "I've got a pretty good one about Kira tripping up in the locker room…"

"Kuzzey, no!"

To his friend's mortification though, Kuzzey could not be dissuaded from regaling Makoto of the embarrassing incident filled with enough homoerotic subtext for a yaoi manga that Kira had experienced not even two years ago.

* * *

Several days later

"I'm fine mother," said Makoto, leaning on her elbows a little as she stared at her mother's image in the display screen. The teenager smiled. "It's been a fun few weeks, though I am looking forward to returning home." Naomi smiled in response.

Naomi Arata was a striking woman of almost pure Japanese descent. She was very tall at five foot ten inches, with sharp dark eyes and sharp facial features. She was a bit on the thin side with slightly below average breasts, but her whole body was toned from exercise and she moved with cat-like grace. On top of that, the woman's mind was incredibly sharp.

She was also kind, warm, protective and supportive. Makoto couldn't have asked for a better mother.

" _What, no special attachment to Kira-chan?_ "

"Mother! Of course not!" said Makoto, looking mildly scandalized. "He's a good friend, sure, and it's been nice getting to know him, but I'm not interested! Honestly, he's more like a brother to me." Which wasn't particularly surprising, since they'd spent their formative years together, even if each possessed only faint memories of those times.

Nevertheless, an odd look passed over Naomi's face. It made Makoto wonder, not for the first time, if there wasn't something more to her relationship with Kira.

After all, Makoto did know everything her mother did about her adoption, and she did have at least some Japanese ancestry, even if her Caucasian ancestry was more readily apparent. Even still, their birthdays were about a month and a half apart. They couldn't possibly be siblings, though she'd often wondered if they might be cousins ever since she'd arrived on the colony.

Simultaneously, mother and daughter shook their heads to clear away the thoughts. They'd already agreed that Caridad's reasons for bringing Makoto to Naomi were long irrelevant.

" _So, no other boys or girls?_ " asked Naomi, sounding a bit disappointed.

"None I'd want to try a long-distance relationship with," said Makoto. "One of Kira-san's friends is pretty cute and very smart, but it wouldn't work out. There's also a really cute redhead, but Kira-san clearly likes her, to say nothing of, oh right, her boyfriend."

Naomi shook her head slightly.

" _Sorry, I just worry about you after the training. I know you're not even sixteen, and both Hikaru-kun and Arisa-chan were only a year ago, but…_ "

"Don't worry mother, I'm fine. Besides, things wouldn't have worked out between me and them. We all decided it was best to remain friends."

" _I suppose. You're old enough to decide that sort of thing for yourself. At any rate, I'm glad you're enjoying yourself, but I suppose I miss you as well._ "

"Mmm, what about you? How's managing Yumiko-sama?"

" _About as exhausting as you'd expect…_ "

The two descended into idle chatter. Outside the room where they spoke, Kira leaned up against the wall, idly turning the conversation over in his head.

He hadn't meant to eavesdrop on them, but when he overheard Makoto calling Flay cute, it had brought him up short. Of course, Makoto had commented on Flay's attractiveness, even if she were surprised by Flay's actual age. But what he'd just overheard…

A few minutes later, Makoto disconnected the call with her mother, and turned around to see Kira entering the room with a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Hmm? Something wrong, Kira-san?"

"Uh, not really… just, um… I overheard your conversation and…"

Makoto tilted her head slightly.

"You were curious about something?"

"Yeah…" said Kira, scratching the back of his head uncertainly. "The way you described Flay just now… Makoto, are you…?"

"Oh." Makoto smiled slightly, shaking her head in understanding. "I'm bisexual. I've had both a boyfriend and a girlfriend and, to be honest… no, not a virgin. I… well, I like to experience new things, and gender is no object. It's all about the person, after all."

Almost two weeks into her visit, Makoto was much more comfortable around Kira and his mother. She'd never been ashamed of her bisexuality, nor of her sexual experience at her young age—even without accounting for her legal adulthood in only a few months, Makoto had been raised to be unashamed of her body. While other parts of the world clung to old, conservative attitudes toward sex, Orb, the Atlantic Federation, the Oceania Union, and the Kingdom of Scandinavia took a much more liberal view towards it. In those nations, violence was treated as significantly more adult content than matters relating to sexuality, and each had extensive sex education systems, though absolutely none of them encouraged sex among minors. Regardless, Makoto knew what she was doing when she'd chosen to sleep with Hikaru about a year ago.

"What about you?" asked Makoto after Kira only hummed thoughtfully in response to her answer. "You certainly seem to have a thing for Allster-san, and don't think for a second I haven't noticed your chemistry with Argyle-san."

Kira had the decency to blush.

"Alright, alright," he said. "I'm also bisexual, and yeah, Sai's definitely attractive physically, but emotionally…" He shrugged. "He's my best friend. I'm not actually interested in anything more with him."

"Fair enough. Is it the same with Allster-san?"

"Kind of; I don't know Flay that well," said Kira, finally taking a seat near Makoto's. "But… she's cute, and sexy for her age. Plus, even though she can be a bit shallow some of the time, she's really pretty sweet and caring. I've also heard her talk about Hybrid rights." Makoto started at that. "She's a big supporter of it, though I get the feeling she doesn't care for Coordinators as much."

"Disapproving of Coordinators but supporting Hybrids?" muttered Makoto. "Wow, you see something new everyday." Not to say Makoto wasn't a supporter of Hybrid rights herself, but the people who blended Coordinator and Natural heritage tended to be a black sheep for the human race as a whole, even among those who accepted both of the larger groups. Not even Orb was immune to this, even if it was considered the nation most accepting of Hybrids.

"At any rate, I guess she's not the only one," said Kira softly. "This guy, back on Copernicus… well, not happening now, but I liked him for awhile. You liked those two for awhile too, right? You don't seem the sort to just have sex." Makoto shook her head.

"Not remotely," she said. "Hikaru-kun and Arisa-chan were both very close to me. We're still friends even now, but we all came to realize things wouldn't work out."

"I see," murmured Kira. He chuckled. "Funny. Somehow, this seems like a strange topic of conversation."

"Maybe up here," said Makoto with a shrug. "Down in the homeland? People talk about it all the time. We should never be ashamed of our bodies." She gave him a sad look. "After all, wouldn't that be the same as being ashamed of who we are?"

"You're right," said Kira. "I guess that explains how you can be so comfortable talking about it, even though you're usually so reserved. That being said… if you're so unashamed, why did you dress so conservatively at first?"

Makoto had the decency to blush in embarrassment at that.

"Um, well, it's not that I… I wasn't… I'm not ashamed of my body, I just…"

Kira leaned back in his seat slightly, basking in the satisfaction of turning the tables and leaving Makoto flustered instead of himself.

* * *

Heliopolis Technical College  
The next day

Unfortunately, Kira couldn't spend all his time hanging out with his friends, new or old. Sometimes, he had to come into the lab to do more direct work for class and for Professor Kato.

On the upside, he wasn't working alone—two other Coordinator students from a lower level class were helping him as extracurricular study.

The students in question were fourteen-year-old twins, Sora and Ayane Honda. Sora was five foot, four inches, with a small, wiry body. He looked fairly young, in part because of his slightly effeminate facial features, but mostly because he just seemed so small. He had short, slightly messy black hair and dark blue eyes. He was dressed in denim shorts and a plain black shirt, and carried some kind of antique music player—Kira had never been able to figure out how old the thing was, but Sora seemed to carry it with him everywhere.

Ayane was an inch shorter than her brother, but somewhat ironically looked a bit older. Like Sora, she had a petite body, but even though their facial features were pretty close to identical, there was a maturity in Ayane's eyes that wasn't present in Sora's. The girl had long blue hair that fell past her waist, dark red eyes and her outfits always seemed to place a subtle emphasis on her feminity: her current outfit was a white blouse, knee-length grey skirt and a red necktie just above her small breasts.

The two of them, while not at Kira's level of education, were incredibly smart and had been extremely helpful to Kira's current research project.

The brunet let out a sigh, shaking his head as he reached up to the 2D holographic display and flicked his finger across it, causing the displayed exoskeleton to start spinning around.

"This will never work," muttered Kira.

"Why not?" asked Sora, tilting his head slightly as he looked between the display and the large pile of notes. "We're developing new exoskeleton frame designs and operating systems… don't we have a lot of room to play with?"

"Well sure, but not with some of Professor Kato's requirements," said Kira, leaning back in his seat slightly, frowning. "But it's not just that… Professor Kato gave me some specific requirements for the OS, but those requirements aren't compatible with the exoskeleton we're working with."

"How so?" asked Ayane, stepping over to them and leaning down on Kira's shoulder. He _just_ managed to resist the urge to shift uncomfortably.

"This frame is a bit bulky, but it's still a man-sized exoskeleton," said Kira, pressing a few buttons and bringing up a second display, this time for the OS code, which started scrolling past. "It's somewhat slow and uses an external power source. An appropriate code would be something more like… this." His fingers flew across the keyboard, and a third display popped up of an entirely different OS code. Just to emphasize the difference, Kira overlapped the two OS code displays.

"Whoa…" muttered Sora. "Yeah, I can't make heads or tails of what they mean, but those codes certainly _look_ very different."

"Um, Kira-senpai…" said Ayane uncertainly. "Did you just… design an OS for the exoskeleton from scratch in a few seconds?"

"Not from scratch, but pretty close," said Kira nonchalantly. "It's really not that complex." Despite his words, both twins gave him admiring looks. He shifted uncomfortably before discarding his created code. "Anyways, the problem is some of these requirements he wants. If it's just an exercise for school, then that's fine, but he seems to consider this a pretty important project."

"So… what sort of exoskeleton does he want?" asked Sora, straightening up a bit. With a sigh, Kira started typing again, and this time he started modifying the already displayed exoskeleton. As fast as his fingers could type, parts started changing on the display, flying off and new ones flying on, only to be quickly replaced. Soon, the exoskeleton frame was nearly unrecognizable.

When Kira finished, his companions both blinked in surprise.

The new exoskeleton was larger—seven meters tall to the two meters of the one they were working on. But it was less bulky as well, with a somewhat more humanoid design.

"That looks like… a mobile suit?" whispered Sora, shocked to the core.

"Actually, it's more like the exoskeletons George Glenn used during his Jupiter Mission," said Kira. Ayane finally stopped leaning on him, a worried look in her eyes.

"But… weren't those exoskeletons what ZAFT developed it's mobile suits from?" she whispered. Slowly, Kira nodded, swallowing a lump in his throat.

"Yeah," he said softly. "It's just a guess… but I think we're helping Morgenroete develop new mobile weapons."

* * *

Elsewhere

Makoto walked down the streets of Heliopolis alone, since not only was Kira busy with his extra work for Professor Kato, but Sai and Kuzzey had classes, Caridad had work, and the redhead had no idea how to get in touch with Flay, so with nothing else to do, she'd decided to wander a little.

It had been an enjoyable two weeks so far, with one more to go before her flight back to the homeland. While a part of her regretted that she wouldn't get the chance to know some of the people up here better, she was still looking forward to going home. Spending time with her mom, maybe take advantage of her mom's position to hang out with Yumiko, to say nothing of Makoto's friends from school or in high society.

Granted, that whole deal with Yumiko was really appealing, because Makoto herself dreamt of being an idol. That had only been driven to new heights by Lacus's singing career, as the two had promised to sing together on stage one day. In fact, Makoto had been getting ready to apply to some auditions when she'd received the letter informing her that she'd been drafted for the military reserve. The letter had surprised her, though in retrospect, it really shouldn't have—after all, she was a Coordinator. Practicality, if nothing else, demanded that they recruit as many Coordinators as they could to serve as mobile suit pilots.

With a sigh, Makoto brushed a loose strand of hair out of her eyes before suddenly becoming aware of where her feet had taken her. She stood outside a café near one of the glass strips that allowed sunlight into the colony. There was a vague feeling in her chest, and she found herself walking into the café, eyes wandering briefly before locking on a brunette sitting by herself.

She wasn't sure why this girl caught her attention, but Makoto studied her nonetheless. She was young—early teens, probably about Flay's age, though her chest was also well-developed, though not as pronounced. Her facial features had a sort of "young beauty" sense to them, nearly unblemished. She had long brown hair with two red hairclips that lifted her hair a little and bright blue eyes. She was wearing black jeans and a long-sleeved blue shirt.

It was the eyes, Makoto decided. There was something about the girl's eyes that drew her—she looked bored, maybe a little sad, but there was also fire and power in her eyes. It was something Makoto had noticed, sometimes—that she could look people in the eye and see so much deeper. So far, the only people she'd done it with had been a few of her childhood friends, Kira and Lacus among them. This was the first time it happened with a stranger.

For reasons she didn't fully understand, Makoto approached the brunette's table.

"Hello…?" she said, a bit uncertainly. The brunette looked up at her.

"Excuse me?" she replied, blinking. "Do I… know you?"

"Ah, no, it's just… well, I'm visiting a friend, and was wandering on my own today. I wound up here and… well, I saw you and just felt like talking… I'm sorry, I know I'm not making sense. I'll just leave you alone…"

"No, wait!" said the brunette, shooting to her feet as Makoto turned away. "It's fine, really! I was just a bit surprised. Only person I know of on Heliopolis with hair that color is Flay Allster and…" She shook her head. "Well, we don't exactly get along." She motioned towards the table. "I wouldn't mind some company right now though—my friends are busy with classes and I'm _bored_."

Makoto laughed slightly.

"I know what you mean—everyone I know on this colony is busy with classes or work, or I don't even know them enough to get in touch!" Smiling, Makoto sat down with the brunette and extended her hand. "I'm Arata Makoto, by the way."

"That name order… you're from the homeland?" Makoto nodded, then the brunette started slightly. "Oh, sorry, that was rude of me! I'm Misako. Misako Miyamura." She shook Makoto's hand.

"A pleasure to meet you, Miyamura-san."

"And you as well… um, Arata-san?"

Makoto smiled and nodded, before the two fell into idle conversation, stopping only briefly for Makoto to order a bit of food and drink.

* * *

Yamato Residence  
Two days later

"Yeah, I'm coming!" called Caridad, more for herself than anything. The home phone line, which was only used for calls to and from outside of Heliopolis, was ringing, and Caridad was home alone, as Kira was in class while Makoto had gone off to visit a recreation center with her new friend.

Caridad pressed the answer button, and an image flashed onto her screen. The black-haired woman's eyes went wide when she saw who was on the other side.

" _Hello Caridad. It's been awhile._ " Caridad swallowed the lump in her throat before inclining her head in a small bow as she replied.

"It has, Heika," she said, her gut clenching a bit. What would lead the Empress of Orb to call her out of the blue like this? They hadn't spoken in nearly sixteen years… not since Caridad had informed her that Ami was killed in a Blue Cosmos strike on the research facility where Ami and Caridad had worked.

The Empress let out a small sigh.

" _I know asking for informality is pointless with you, so I'll just cut straight to the point,_ " she said. " _Caridad, I'd like to ask you to move back to Orb._ "

"What?" gasped Caridad. Why…?

" _I'm sorry, I know this is sudden,_ " said the Empress. " _But… well, listen, I know you probably won't like hearing this, but I've been keeping an eye out for information on yours and Ami's old co-workers._ " Caridad's gut clenched at that. " _I've just learned that two of them were murdered in the PLANTs about six months before the war began._ " Caridad's eyes widened in terror.

It couldn't be… had Blue Cosmos found them?

" _Caridad, you were one of Ami's best friends,_ " said the Empress. " _Please… come home. I need to know that you're safe._ "

Slowly, Caridad nodded. She'd wanted to keep Kira and Makoto separate, try to fly under the radar… but if Blue Cosmos had gotten any information on her, on them, then the safest place for them would likely be in Orb, under the protection of the Imperial Family.

Another, horrifying thought struck her though: was the day she'd dreaded and hoped to never see approaching?

Was it finally time for her to come clean… to Kira, to Makoto, to Naomi… to the Imperial Family? The truth behind that terrible incident, all those years ago?

Caridad's eyes squeezed shut.

 _No_ , she thought to herself. _Not now. It's been sixteen years… it's over, it's in the past… why can't everyone else just let Divinity end…?_

* * *

 **Author's Notes: So, what did everyone think?**

 **The chapter title's a bit misleading, since I spent less time emphasizing the past between Kira and Makoto and more time on character introductions... which I suddenly realize I messed up for Sai and Kuzzey; they're the only two who weren't given any kind of description. Whoops? But I'm too lazy to go back and fix it, so let's talk about something more interesting!**

 **Such as that scene with Kira and Makoto discussing their sexuality. I'm not too into the idea of Orb as the only "good" nation around, so even though I do tend to make use of them in such a role, I wanted to impress the idea that their "progressive" view on non-Coordinator matters weren't unique to them. Thus, several nations, including standard Cosmic Era patsy villain nation the Atlantic Federation (y'know, I suspect Fukuda might've had a thing against the U.S. But, you know, just a guess on my part) share Orb's stance on acknowledging sexuality instead of repressing it. Also, I've never made it clear enough that the majority of characters in my GS fics are bisexual, and I realized how easy it was to give the idea that only female characters are bisexual, which is absolutely** _ **horrible**_ **of me, and it's worse than any of the other BS I've done over the years. Hence, I not only stated outright that Kira was bisexual, but made it clear (sadly only by "telling" instead of "showing," but it's only the first chapter!) that he found at least two different men attractive. Take a wild guess who his crush on the moon was (oh god, could I have made it anymore obvious?! It's not like Kira and Athrun didn't have enough subtext in the show for this bit of fanon to be** _ **canon**_ **instead!).**

 **... Um, moving on.**

 **I apply a little alternative character interpretation to Flay; what's funny is that, in my initial drafts she and Makoto were going to absolutely** _ **despise**_ **one another, because it was obvious at a glance that Makoto was a Coordinator. Once I took that away and made it less visually obvious, the flow of the** _ **entire**_ **scene changed, and suddenly Makoto and Flay were actually getting along okay. Funny, isn't it, the impact a relatively minor detail like** _ **hair color**_ **can have on a story like this, hmm?**

 **At any rate, I know you've all probably got like a million questions. "What's Divinity?" (assuming you aren't familiar with the original Divinity Saga... or you know, cheat and read one of them, even if only the last epilogue is still on FF). "What the hell?! Why does Orb have a royal family?! That's totally not canon!" Well, nope, it isn't, but Orb needs some serious overhaul from Fukuda's pet nation anyways, so why not? :D "Where's Haruma, Caridad's husband?" I think it's obvious that I simply didn't use him in this story; not needed. "Why does Kira know he's adopted?!" Because** _ **reasons!**_ **:P "Your OC is childhood friends with both Kira and Lacus?! MARY SUE ARHGAIHGFDSHI!" I debated that one for awhile, but in the end, I did have my reasons for having Makoto's past friendship with Lacus... reasons that won't even pan out entirely until the very end of the story, so I'm sure you've all now decided my OC has no backstory to justify anything and therefore she (and myself) must be burned at the stake. Fortunately, torches and pitchforks would only help me right now, as the flames would merely unbury my house from the snow that has conspired to imprison me!**

 **"Is the author crazy? Why is the author still ranting with this irritatingly long A/N that no one will read anyways?" If anyone actually asked this, the answers are: not according to my therapist, but I think she's just waiting till my guard is down; and "because I'm crazy and ranty and love to hear myself talk. Why else would I do this?"**

 **At any rate, the next chapter is intended to correspond to the first episode of SEED, so we'll get our introduction to ZAFT and the Alliance, plus action. Hopefully, now that I've determined myself to write again, the next chapter on this and my many waiting stories will not take too long.**

 **Hope to see you soon, and I appreciate any thoughtful reviews I get, but I despise any reviews that are only flames or non-constructive criticism! Oh, and any anonymous reviewers (if my anon reviews are on), please keep in mind that I have no means to reply to any questions you ask!**

 **Sayōnara!**


	2. Shattered Peace

**Hello again everyone!  
**

 **Okay, time to stop imitating Lacus know, because I keep hearing her voice when I read that first line. Anyways, sorry it took me a month and a half to get this done, but there were several parts I was uncertain of, and I struggled with one particular scene fairly early on. But, regardless, the second chapter is done!**

 **This is where the story actually gets started. While I introduce the ZAFT and Alliance characters here (as well as give Sai the description I forgot from last chapter), that's almost all as part of the action. Of course, anyone who read my last attempted reboot will realize pretty quickly that this is basically a rehash of the first chapter from there, only with Makoto's role shifted around a bit.**

 **Regardless, I should stop boring you with details. Onwards to the story!**

 **Note:** **Dialogue that is underlined, " like this," is being spoken in a non-English language, usually (but not always) Japanese. In this chapter, characters are only speaking in English or Japanese.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam SEED or any of the associated characters or mecha. I claim ownership of all OCs in this chapter and at least partial ownership of the original mecha designs. I also wish to stake a claim on my interpretation of Rusty, but he's basically just an OC-stand-in anyway. :P**

* * *

Second Phase: Shattered Peace  
January 25th, Cosmic Era 71

* * *

Heliopolis Park

The workload was still obscene, but Kira decided his situation could be a lot worse, even though he was still concerned that he might be working on military technology for Morgenroete.

However, the presence of Makoto and Misako in the gazebo with him made things easier. The redhead and brunette had hit things off remarkably well, and had apparently been hanging out quite a bit whenever Kira or Misako's friends were unavailable—which had apparently been rather frequent lately.

The two girls were chatting idly, mostly inquiries from Misako into the homeland and Makoto's time in basic. Still, Kira would occasionally add himself to the conversation whenever he needed a small break, and it was a system that seemed to be working.

Kira briefly tuned out the girls, listening instead to a news report on a ZAFT attack in Taiwan, only to have that focus disrupted when a mechanical green bird landed on his laptop.

"Birdee!" chirped the bird. Kira shook his head slightly.

The bird, which he'd named Tori, was a gift from the friend on Copernicus he'd had a crush on. He'd actually had Tori switched off for the past few weeks, not wanting the bird to make a pest of itself while Makoto was around, but after his conversation with her a week ago regarding their love lives, he'd been thinking about his friend and had turned the bird back on a few days ago.

"Kira! Kira, where are you?" called a voice suddenly. Kira groaned, while Misako perked up, spinning in her seat.

"Sora?!" she called, waving her hand. Kira blinked, sharing a surprised look with Makoto as Sora and Ayane wandered towards the gazebo.

"Hey Misako," said Sora, before his attention turned to brunette's companions. He blinked. "Wait, Kira? You two know each other?"

"I could ask the same thing," said Kira, straightening up a bit. He waved his hand at the girls. "Makoto and Misako met a few days ago and hit it off."

"Hold it, _you're_ the girl she's been talking about?" questioned Ayane.

"And you know Kira?!" added Sora. Makoto shook her head, trying to make sense of what was going on.

"Um, right, introductions," said Misako. "Makoto-san, these two are Sora and Ayane Honda. They've been my friends for… well, as long as I can remember."

"A pleasure to meet you, Honda-san, Honda-san." Everyone else blinked at the repetition. Internally, Sora groaned at the thought that they'd never know which twin Makoto was referring to.

"The pleasure is ours… Makoto, right?" said Ayane, stepping forward.

"Yes, that's right," said the redhead.

"Hmm, you know, from what Misako described last week, I expected a different outfit," muttered Sora, but everyone heard him. Misako smacked him, while Makoto blushed a bit.

She'd been dressing less and less conservatively as time passed, and it figured that she'd receive a comment on her attire as soon as she broke out her favorite outfit: a sleeveless white shirt covered by a sleeveless leather top, black shorts, black socks that ended just below the shorts to expose a hint of thigh, and a black leather half skirt that fell past her knees, but only covered the back of her legs and not the front.

"Lay off her Sora," said Misako. "What are you doing out here anyway?"

"Ah, right," said Sora, rubbing his arm where Misako had smacked him and turning his attention to Kira. "Sorry senpai, but Professor Kato asked us to find you. Seems like he's got even more work for you."

Kira groaned.

"I'm still working on the stuff he dumped on me yesterday."

"Isn't there still some stuff from the start of the semester as well?" asked Ayane with a faint tilt of her head. Kira nodded weakly.

"Oh, come on, how can he get away with this?" questioned Makoto, facepalming as she spoke. "There's got to be some kind of limit on how much school work a single teacher can give, right?"

"Not at the tech college," said Misako with a sigh. "They're attached to Morgenroete there."

"Ah yes, Sahaku-sama's personal free labor engine," said Makoto with a grimace. The others all stared at her. "What? They aren't my words, don't look at me like that! That was the description a friend of mine, a member of the Sahaku House mind, gave to the Morgenroete-college system! We've got one down in the homeland too."

"At any rate, it does mean they can ask a lot of us," said Sora, stepping into the gazebo and leaning on the table next to Kira's laptop. "Sorry, about this Kira. Really, but there's not a whole lot I can do. Sai's been trying to take some of the workload on himself, but…"

"Yeah… yeah, I know," muttered Kira. "I'm really tempted to just throw it all out though."

"With a workload like that, I don't blame you," said Ayane. "I'm just glad it's only extracurricular for us." She shifted slightly as her ears caught something coming from Kira's laptop. "Are you watching the news?"

"Well, I had a window pulled up," said Kira, selecting the window and expanding it to full-size as Ayane squeezed into the gazebo next to Sora to take a look, Makoto and Misako crowding in from Kira's other side.

" _I'm within seven miles of Kaohsiung,_ " said the reporter, " _where the sounds of fierce combat continue to echo._ " In the background, a pair of ZAFT mobile suits could be seen.

"Taiwan, huh…" muttered Sora softly.

"How old do you think the report is?" asked Ayane. "If it's more than a few days, they may have already taken over Kaohsiung."

"That's not too far from the Homeland, is it?" Sora glanced at the others. "Will Orb be okay?"

"Orb will be fine," said Makoto, looking up at him. "It's not like Kaohsiung is any closer than Carpentaria or Panama are."

"And besides," said Misako, straightening up as Kira hibernated the laptop, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not gonna complain if East Asia is too busy dealing with this to complain about Orb's refusal to revoke its neutrality."

"Hmmm," murmured Kira as he started to pack up his laptop. "I never figured out what East Asia's problem with Orb was."

"Who knows?" said Sora. To their surprise, Makoto raised her hand. "Wait, really?"

"Yeah," said Makoto. "Remember, China dominates the Republic, but outside of China, Japan—and, by extension, Orb—are still quite popular with the citizenry."

"Really?" asked Misako. "Why's that?"

"Same reason China despises Japan and Orb," said Makoto. "I don't know if any of you studied the Reconstruction War, but it's required reading in the homeland. In the early years of the war, Japan was responsible for pacifying and stabilizing East Asia. The Chinese are still bitter about being shown up, even though everyone else was grateful for the stability." She giggled slightly. "It actually created a strong friendship between Japan and Korea, and if that's not a sign they were doing right, I don't know what was."

"Man, I can't even be bothered with _modern_ politics, must less historical politics," said Sora. "Can we just get this over with?"

"Sure," said Ayane. "After all, the sooner Kira-sempai knows what he's working on, the sooner he can try to get it finished." She glanced at Makoto and Misako. "Why don't you two come with us? I'm sure no one will object to a few guests."

* * *

Earth Forces _Marseille III_ -class Transport Ship _Chartres_ , Heliopolis Dock

"Are you sure about remaining on station Lieutenant?" asked Commander Hawthorn, the CO of the _Chartres_. The man he was speaking to turned towards him and shook his head slightly.

The man in question, dressed in the white uniform of an Earth Forces officer, was Mu La Flaga, an ace pilot and lieutenant in the Atlantic Federation Space Forces. He was twenty-seven years old, stood six feet tall with a slightly thin frame, had wild blond hair, handsome features and intense blue eyes. He was a highly respected figure in the Earth Forces, nicknamed the Hawk of Endymion for his exploits in a battle over the Endymion crater back when it was an Earth Forces lunar base.

"I'm sure," said Mu, staring out the viewport at the exit from the Heliopolis harbor. "Until everything's wrapped up inside or those ZAFT ships wander off, I'm not gonna let my guard down."

"Don't you think you're being a little paranoid?" questioned Hawthorn. "ZAFT won't risk an international incident with Orb by attacking within Heliopolis Airspace."

"Maybe… just call it a gut feeling though, and I've learned to trust that." Mu turned to Hawthorn with a thin smile. "Besides, you know what they say: better safe than sorry."

Hawthorn chuckled. "Fair enough Lieutenant La Flaga," he said. "I suppose there's no real harm in it, after all."

* * *

Morgenroete Inc. Heliopolis Branch Warehouse 13

A brunette woman let out a faint sigh as she wiped some sweat off of her brow after clambering down from atop a mobile suit cradle. It still wasn't even noon, but she was already exhausted, seeing as she'd spent the last four hours straight working, making sure the machines inside this particularly warehouse were ready for transport.

Her name was Murrue Ramius, and she was in overall command of the warehouse and its contents at the moment. She was twenty-eight years old, five foot seven inches tall, with shoulder-blade length dark brown hair, light brown eyes, and an absolutely monstrous figure—huge breasts, curved hips and a relatively tiny waist. She was wearing the orange outfit of a Morgenroete factory worker, and seemed to fit in right in with everyone around her.

It was all a ruse though—despite her very civilian appearance and hair far longer than any military regulation would ever allow, Murrue was actually an officer in the Atlantic Federation Space Forces.

Morgenroete was based out of Orb and owned by Orb Noble Houses… but the eight new mobile weapons they'd developed and housed in this warehouse weren't built for Orb. Instead, they'd been built for the Atlantic Federation, a secret joint project during the course of which Murrue had been working undercover as a Morgenroete employee.

But today was the day they'd be transferring these weapons to the secret dock housing their new warship, another Morgenroete development. It was a relief for her—though she'd trained under some of the finest officers of the Atlantic Federation, Murrue was still very junior and inexperienced. Her entire military career since graduating from the McKinley Military Academy had been this one undercover assignment.

As such, she did not really feel ready for the burdens of command, and would be relieved when she would be getting orders again instead of getting them.

"Ensign Galloway," called Murrue, getting the attention of a blonde woman a few years her junior, also wearing the Morgenroete factory worker uniform. "I'd like you to take charge of the first convoy. The Duel, Blitz and Buster are ready for transport."

"Yes ma'am," said Collette Galloway with a quick salute. Murrue offered her a kind smile.

"Please inform Captain Ray that it will be another two hours before we're finished prepping the rest of the G-weapons for transport," she said. "I'll see you on the ship."

"I'll hold you to that… Murrue."

The brunette shook her head as the blonde turned away, a fond smile on her lips. She felt she could consider Collette a good friend, but she wasn't sure how comfortable she was with her subordinate's familiarity. If she didn't know better, she'd suspect the blonde of having a crush on her.

* * *

ZAFT _Nazca_ -class Destroyer _Vesalius_ , Flagship of the Le Creuset Team, Heliopolis Airspace

Rau Le Creuset was something of an enigma to everyone around him; the man was reasonably well-built, had wavy blond hair down to his back and a handsome mouth and jaw line, but hid his nose, cheeks and eyes behind a white mask and wore white gloves at all times. He suffered from health complications that he hadn't detailed to anyone, not even the doctors aboard the ships under his command as a senior officer of ZAFT.

The man was an incredible pilot with one of the greatest records in all of ZAFT, and a ruthless tactician as well, leading the soldiers under his command with brilliant tactics born of natural cunning and a keen intuition, but acting with little to no mercy for his enemies. He was charismatic, with a smooth voice and the ability to convince just about anyone to at least give him the benefit of the doubt, even in the face of actions so risky that no sane military leader would ever allow them.

But for all that, the man could also be incredibly gentle, almost fatherly to the people around him whether they were younger or older than him; he had an adoptive daughter he'd been looking after since she was a baby, and knew how to look out for people. He was practically a surrogate father to the junior pilots under his command, one of whom had no parents at all, another had outright lost his father, and still another had lost his mother, leaving his father a wreck rather unfit to raise a teenager.

But the man known as the Crucible of Yggdrasil didn't coddle them either; he'd just sent those very same teenage boys and girls with only a small escort into potentially hostile territory where they would be relying on everything going perfectly according to plan to get out or meet the reaper long before their time.

It was their duty though, and everyone knew it; they appreciated the trust Rau had placed in them.

Still, there was at least one person questioning Rau's current actions.

"Really, don't look so frustrated Ades," said Rau to Frederik Ades, the captain of the _Vesalius_ as the blond stood at the tactical display table at the back of the bridge.

"But I don't think it would be unreasonable to at least wait for the Council's opinion," argued Ades, though it was somewhat moot since the small troop transports had already launched to deliver the troops to the aging colony.

"Ordinarily I might agree with you," said Rau, picking up a plastic bag velcroed to the table, "but in this case, I'm certain it would be too late by the time the Council came to a decision." He gently sent the bag floating through the air towards Ades, giving the captain another look at the picture contained within: the upper torso and part of the head of a dull gray mobile suit of a design they'd never seen before.

"But these could just as easily be Orb's own weapons."

"The possibility had occurred to me, but no—I have a sixth sense for these things. My gut says that these unknown weapons belong to the Earth Forces… and over the years, I've learned just how important it is to trust that instinct."

Ades frowned, but didn't pursue the argument any further.

"Besides," said Rau too softly for Ades to hear, "that Amelia is feeling off concerns me as well."

* * *

Heliopolis

As the three Coordinator college students and their two friends approached the elecar station, they overheard a voice that drew the attention of all five, accompanied by a frown from Ayane and a groan from Misako.

"I'm totally serious, it's nothing like that!" said Flay.

"Yeah?" replied Jessica. "You're _lying_."

"Come on, why don't you just come out and admit it!" added Misha, leaning into Flay's personal space.

"I told you!" said Flay, giggling slightly at their antics before she suddenly noticed the group. She caught sight of Ayane and took a half step back, an action that went unnoticed by precisely no one. Still, credit to Flay for effort: she seemed to quickly shake off her initial reaction and focused on her fellow redhead. "Ah, Miss Arata!"

"Hello, Allster-san," said Makoto with a smile, stepping forward a bit and carefully putting herself between the two groups. This went about as unnoticed as Flay's step back, and everyone shot her uncertain looks. "It's been awhile."

"Yes, it has," said Flay. Her eyes drifted to the group behind Makoto, three of whom were watching Flay with narrowed eyes. The tension was so noticeable that Jessica and Misha were barely reacting to Kira's presence. "I'm sorry, I just…" She closed her eyes, shaking her head, before focusing on Sora and Ayane.

"I'm sorry!" she said one more time before suddenly rushing to the elecar. Her friends gave quick bows to the group before rushing to join her, and the elecar quickly sped off. Makoto let out a sigh before turning to the others.

"It's really pretty bad, isn't it?" she said softly. They all nodded.

"I get the impression that she's trying not to show it, but she does a poor job of it," said Ayane, fingering her long blue hair.

"She has an easier time if it's not obvious," added Sora. "I think it's cause it lets her pretend that you're a Natural instead of a Coordinator."

"Ugh, it's unacceptable!" said Misako, tugging at her hair. "So what if Ayane is a Coordinator?! That girl's behavior is abhorrent!"

Makoto said nothing, preoccupied instead with the strange inconsistency in Flay's behavior towards Coordinators and support of Hybrids…

* * *

Meanwhile

Within the bowels of Heliopolis, a group of soldiers in ZAFT pilot suits were making their way through maintenance corridors towards the asteroid the colony had been coupled to, practically on the other side of the cylinder from where they'd entered, each preoccupied with their own thoughts.

One of them, who was pretty much the leader of the junior pilots in red suits among the group, was especially distracted. Fifteen years old, five foot seven inches tall with effeminate blue hair, striking green eyes and very handsome features, he'd garnered a lot of attention from others to the point of being an irritant in his life.

But, of course, that wasn't what was preoccupying the thoughts of Athrun Zala at this particularly moment. No, he was instead distracted by memories of a childhood friend of his, a naïve and kind-hearted boy who he'd known for years. They'd shared a distaste for the brewing conflict, and Athrun had assured his friend that the Earth and PLANTs would see eye-to-eye. But that didn't happen, and now, as he prepared to attack a neutral colony not unlike the lunar city where his friend lived, Athrun wondered what his old friend thought of this damned war.

The group came to a sudden stop as they reached the hatch that would lead them into the hollowed out asteroid; from there, they would move into the Morgenroete shipyard contained in the area where the colony and asteroid were coupled together, and strategically plant explosives to take out the Earth Forces personnel and ship they knew to be hiding within.

* * *

Morgenroete Inc. Heliopolis Branch

Kira and the others stepped into the workroom of Professor Kato, where Sai was already waiting for them.

"Ah, you finally made it," said Sai with a faint smile, "and you brought some guests as well."

"Sai-sempai, this is Misako Miyamura," said Ayane, smiling. "She's a friend of ours."

"Ah yes, the demon," muttered Sai. Misako's blue eyes flared, and only Makoto's sudden grip on both her arms kept her from flying forward to attack someone—Sai, Sora or Ayane, the redhead wasn't sure who, but she was certain it would be one of them. "Sora's told us a lot about you, though that name came from a classmate of his."

"Oh, I remember," growled Misako. "He's gonna pay for that… one day…" Makoto gave her friend a concerned look that Misako couldn't see since the redhead was behind her.

With a shake of his head, Kira focused on Sai.

Sai was the oldest in Kira's circle of friends at sixteen, and he was tall at five foot nine, four inches taller than Kira. He had short, light brown hair and green eyes behind faintly-tinted glasses, with a bit more solid of a build than any of the others in the group, and sharp features. He was Kira's best friend by a long shot, despite the fact that he was engaged to none other than Flay, who, as Makoto was fond of noting, Kira had "a thing" for.

"Just give me the data already," said Kira with a slight groan. Sai smiled almost apologetically as he walked up and handed Kira a disk.

"Seriously, what is the professor thinking giving this kind of workload to a student?" questioned Makoto as she slowly released her grip on Misako.

"Who knows?" said Sai with a faint shrug. "Anyways, any idea what it is you're working on Kira? What little I saw of it looked like new operating system software."

"I'd have to take a look at it myself to be sure," said Kira, "but if I had to guess, I'd say it was to improve the frame setup module. Just a program analysis, really."

At that moment, Kira noticed someone else in the room, a thin blond figure wearing a brown coat and hat.

"Uh, who's that?" asked Kira quietly, glancing at Sai.

"Oh, she says she's a guest of the Professor's, but that he hasn't had time to talk to her about why she came here," said Sai. He pushed his glasses up on his nose slightly. "She's apparently from the homeland, and pretty eager to get back there."

"Oh, I see."

As they spoke, the blonde shifted irritably, throwing a brief glare at the door to Professor Kato's office. Makoto stared at her for a moment before shaking her head.

 _Nah, there's no way…_

* * *

The _Vesalius_

Rau glanced at his watch and smiled thinly; it was time for the second and riskiest phase of the operation to begin. The infiltration team should have planted the explosives by now and gotten into position, with the explosives moments away from going off.

"It's time," he said to Ades, who gave a slight nod.

"Weigh anchor!" he ordered. " _Vesalius_ launch!"

Following orders, the pilot released the anchors holding the _Vesalius_ to the asteroid and fired up the engines, beginning to maneuver the vessel around the asteroid and into sight of Heliopolis, the _Laurasia_ -class frigate _Gamow_ following less than a minute later.

This was the risk, the gamble: they were initiating hostile actions towards Heliopolis, and if things went wrong, not only would they mostly be wiped out or captured, but they'd have left behind a massive political mess that could cost ZAFT the war. If the timing was off by more than a minute, they could find themselves facing a potentially overwhelming force.

But one did not play it safe in war. Rau's smirk was grim as the two ships of his fleet began to launch virtually all of their mobile suits, nine in total, with his CGUE and a pair of GINNs remaining in the hangar, one due to damage and the others because there were no available pilots after most of them had been sent into Heliopolis.

Still, they had enough GINNs to wipe out a small fleet… and the skilled pilots to pull such a task off. Despite the gamble, Rau was certain of his victory.

* * *

Professor Kato's Workroom

The seven teens had been blissfully unaware of anything wrong—of the panic in the dock control rooms, the nine war machines and their motherships bearing down on the colony, the launch of an Earth Forces transport and more than a dozen mobile armors from both Heliopolis and the transport in question or of the Atlantic Federation soldiers prepping a new warship for launch while others moved untested prototype weapons across the colony—at least until Makoto had suddenly stumbled, one arm pressing against her stomach as though nauseous, the other rubbing her temple. The others were moving to check on her when the entire colony started shaking, knocking everyone in the room except for Kira and Makoto off their feet.

"What the–? A meteoroid?" questioned Sai, grabbing the edge of the desk next to him to pull himself up.

"No idea," said Kira as the tremors died down as he rushed to Sora's side. "But whatever it was…"

"It wasn't a meteoroid," said Makoto, gasping slightly for breath. "Shit, let's get out of here. Something really bad is happening and we need to get to the shelters now!"

* * *

Heliopolis Airspace

Mu knew that they were in serious trouble pretty much from the instant he launched. Sure, he'd killed five GINNs single-handed at the Battle of Endymion, but the stories generally neglected to mention that he hadn't fought them all at once—and that was five GINNs over the course of the entire several hours of battle.

Here, if he was lucky, he'd probably have to take apart seven GINNs himself over the course of several _minutes_. As it was, even as he deployed two of his Moebius Zero's four wired gunbarrels to attack a GINN from three directions at once, two GINNs bypassed the battle entirely and flew into the Heliopolis harbor.

Still, he had to do what he could—Mu locked onto the GINN and opened fire. The pilot was good, but couldn't evade all three angles of attack, and two cannon rounds tore into the GINN's hip, inflicting tremendous damage and knocking it off-balance.

That gave Mu an opening, and he fired the linear cannon from the main fuselage, tearing a hole straight through the GINN's torso, obliterating it.

But even as he did that, three of the regular Moebius mobile armors went down to gunfire from the 76mm machine guns of the GINNs while a fourth—piloted by Gail, a junior pilot he'd been teaching on the _Chartres_ —got sliced in half.

Mu cursed, recalling his gunbarrels, and tried to vector in to attack another GINN.

* * *

Heliopolis

The ZAFT infiltration team had now entered the colony proper, and were looking down at a trio of trailers moving across the colony.

"There they are," said Yzak Joule with a slight smirk, "just like the Commander said." Yzak was probably the proudest member of the infiltration team—he was sixteen years old, five foot nine inches tall with an average frame, sharp facial features, blue eye and neck-length silver hair, though the last was hidden by his helmet right now.

"What, prod them enough and they'll come out of their holes?" said Dearka Elsman with a slight snicker. Resident team joker to the core pretty much summed him up—he was a few months shy of seventeen, five foot nine with a well-built frame, playful features, beady violet eyes and blond hair contrasting sharply with his dark skin.

"There are only three though," said Nicol Amalfi, staring down at the convoy on the colony highway. He was the youngest of them at fourteen, and only five foot five tall with a slight frame, soft features, brown eyes and eye-catching green hair.

"Intel said there were eight," added Rusty Mackenzie, "so that means there must still be five in the warehouse." The oldest and most experienced of the ZAFT Reds in the group, Rusty was almost eighteen and stood five foot ten inches tall with a solid frame, blue eyes and messy orange hair. Despite his experience on the frontlines, he was the kindest of the group by far, and something of a mediating influence on the others.

"Sure, but which warehouse?" asked Trisha Summers, glancing at her teammates. "There are only what, twenty of them? I don't want to stick around long enough to search all of them." Trisha, like Rusty, had been fighting on the frontlines for some time; she was seventeen, five foot eight, had stunning facial features, neck-length purple hair, intense red eyes and a well-curved frame that belied her incredible combat ability.

Athrun let out a sigh in response while the last of the ZAFT Reds, Amelia Hawkins, stared down at the warehouses.

Amelia was the second oldest of the seven Reds, younger than Rusty but several months older than Trisha. She was five foot, eight inches tall, had soft, cute facial features, mismatched green and purple eyes and dark brown hair that fell to her shoulder blades. She had curvy figure with prominent breasts and hips made more pronounced by her thinness, set atop incredibly long legs.

"Hmmm… we'll just have to split up," said Amelia, glancing at the others. "I'll head to the warehouses, try to find the remaining weapons. How about the rest of you?"

"I'll go with you," said Rusty, taking charge. "Trisha, Athrun, Mitch, Erik, the four of you will come with me and Amelia. The rest of you get down there and grab those machines—make sure to deactivate the self-destruct first thing. Anyone left after that should head for the warehouses to back up the rest of us—shouldn't be hard too find, you can probably just look for which one is on fire and making gunfire noises."

"Roger that," said almost everyone at once.

* * *

Technical College

After the initial tremors had died down, the students and their guests—expected and unexpected—from Professor Kato's lab had rushed off for the elevators and stairwell, with more tremors starting during their little mad dash. Makoto, with her military training, had taken the lead and opened the stairwell door the second the handle was within reach.

"What's going on here?" she demanded coolly as soon as she saw people in the stairwell.

"It's a ZAFT attack," said one of the men, pausing briefly. "Some of their mobile suits have entered the colony!"

"WHAT?!" shrieked Misako furiously. The noise prompted Sai, Ayane and Sora to cover their ears, so they didn't notice as the blonde gasped and ran off down the corridor.

"Hey, wait!" called Kira, rushing after her while Misako started cursing viciously, blocking out the world around her.

"Kira?" said Sora, running after his friend.

"Wait, damn it, what are you doing?!" demanded Makoto, chasing after the three.

"Sora wait!" called Ayane, turning to pursue… only for a particularly big tremor to shake the building, causing Ayane to fall to the floor and snapping Misako out of her rage for a brief moment.

"Just go, we'll catch up!" Sora called back as he continued to run.

"Damn it Honda-san, just go back!" shouted Makoto as she overtook Sora.

It didn't take long for her to overtake Kira as well, and only a few seconds more to catch up to the blonde, Makoto grabbing her arm and pulling her to a stop.

"What the hell are you doing?!" demanded Makoto angrily.

"Yeah, it's a dead-end that way," added Kira, coming to a stop. Sora was about half a second behind him.

"Stop tailing me," said the blonde irritably, "you three better head back and hook back up with the others."

"Not without you," said Makoto, grip on her arm tightening slightly. "All civilians need to evacuate to shelters—let the Heliopolis garrison handle things."

To the fortune of the blonde, and the misfortune of her three hapless pursuers, another heavy tremor hit the building at the same time the sound of an explosion reached their ears. Wind rushed through the corridor from behind them, and then a section of it collapsed, trapping them on the wrong side. The blonde had lost her hat, and the boys could now see her tomboyish features and wild but feminine hair more clearly, along with her light hazel eyes. Makoto gasped in shock.

"O-kay," said Sora slowly, "I guess we're not going back that way. Um, Kira, do you know where we should go from here?"

"We're near the factory district," said Kira, "so we should be able to find some shelters there."

"Right, lead the way," said Makoto after a few seconds, grabbing the blonde's hand and dragging her down the corridor after Kira and Sora.

"Hey, let go of me you jerk!"

 _Understatement, Athha-sama_ , thought Makoto, who'd now recognized the blonde and was internally panicking at the fact that she was dragging Cagalli Yula Athha, aka the daughter of Orb's Chief Representative, down the halls of a colony under attack.

"I'm military reserve, believe me when I say I've heard worse," said Makoto, hiding her nervousness. The redhead glanced back briefly and was surprised to see tears in the blonde's eyes.

"I just never thought we'd get… involved," said the blonde. Makoto looked forward again, following Kira.

"It'll be okay," she said softly, slipping into Japanese. "I promise."

* * *

Factory District

The ZAFT infiltrators landed in the factory district, not too far from where one of the two GINNs that had entered the colony was even now wreaking utter havoc.

"So, where do we start?" asked Trisha.

"That one," said Amelia, pointing at the warehouse marked with a massive 13. She couldn't quite place it, but there was a feeling in the pit of her stomach that seemed to be drawing her that way…

"You sure about that?" asked Athrun.

"Not really, it's just a gut feeling."

"Might as well go with it," said Rusty, "we need to start somewhere."

Inside the warehouse itself, Atlantic soldiers and factory workers were struggling to get the mobile suits operational. Murrue stood by the cradle of the X105, shouting orders while resisting the rising panic in her chest.

She was supposed to be the _Archangel_ 's chief communications and hangar control officer, not a frontline soldier, and certainly not the one giving orders in a disaster. Relaying orders certainly, but not the one making the actual decisions. It was a position she did not yet feel herself ready for.

"We need to get these machines moving!" she shouted. "Hop inside and pilot them yourselves if you have to! Has anyone been able to contact the _Archangel_?"

Before anyone could answer, however, a wall of the warehouse exploded and, a few seconds later, the sounds of gunfire drowned out everything else.

Up above, Kira and his three companion rushed out onto a second level catwalk, giving them a nice view of the warzone the warehouse had become. All four of them gasped in shock, and both Kira and Sora felt their stomachs twist as Kira's quiet fears were seemingly confirmed.

"W-what the…? Mobile suits?" questioned Kira, shocked. Sora gulped, and even Makoto was gaping slightly.

"Orb's new prototypes?" she whispered softly. But another answer was quick to come forth as Cagalli fell to her knees, gripping the railing.

"I knew it… the Earth Forces prototype mobile weapons…" she said, nearly sobbing. Makoto gasped. "Father… I knew you betrayed us all!" This last was shouted just loud enough for a few people on the ground to hear. Murrue spun around and leveled her assault rifle at the source, pausing in surprise when she realized she was staring up at a quartet of teenagers. Sora, seeing the rifle pointed their way, grabbed the blonde and ran for it.

"You can cry later, like when there aren't a few hundred guns being fired in our general vicinity!" he said with more than a bit of panic in his voice as he fled the warehouse, Kira and Makoto right behind the pair. However, when they exited the warehouse again, the redhead came to a halt.

"You three get to safety," she said, causing them to come up short. Kira gave her a look of horror.

"What? Makoto!"

"ZAFT has attacked Heliopolis!" said Makoto sternly. "I don't care who those weapons belong to, if ZAFT is after them, then I have no intention of standing by and letting them take them!" She smiled weakly. "Go… it's been fun, Kira-san, and I look forward to doing this again. But right now, I need you to get her to safety."

With that, she turned around, ran back into the warehouse and, to the shock of the other three teens, leapt over the railing and down into the firefight.

"Makoto! Ah, damn it!" shouted Kira before turning around and racing away from the warehouse, dragging the other two with him.

* * *

Meanwhile

The three prototype mobile suits being transported across the highway all suddenly stood up, one after another, their pilots inputting some quick modifications to the OS so that they could at least be moved halfway decently.

"Well, OS aside, pretty impressive," said Yzak with a faint smirk as he looked over a bit of the data on the display in front of him. "How 'bout yours Dearka?"

" _Doesn't seem like the time to worry about it; I've got enough adjustments done, and it'll move. For now, that's all that matters._ "

"And Nicol?"

" _Should be good here,_ " said Nicol, " _wish we could go back up Athrun and the others, but these things are too clumsy right now. We should've brought GINN OS-es with us._ "

"Hindsight Nicol," said Yzak. "Come on you two, let's get these back to Commander Le Creuset."

* * *

Warehouse 13

When Makoto landed, it had been next to a ZAFT soldier who was trying to flank the soldiers in the warehouse. The green-suited pilot had been surprised, and Makoto was the first to act, kicking him in the leg and drawing a loud cry of pain as it bent at an odd angle. She quickly slammed her elbow into his ribs, and saw something splatter the inside of his visor before he collapsed and the redhead procured his gun.

Somewhere inside her, she desperately prayed that he would live.

The noise, however, had drawn the attention of the soldiers defending the warehouse, but none of them seemed interested in attacking someone who'd just taken out a ZAFT soldier. For her own part, Makoto let the instincts of her training take over, putting her in cover next to the brunette who'd heard Athha's cry of anguish.

"Who the hell are you?!" demanded the brunette.

"Second Lieutenant Arata Makoto, Orb Reserve Forces," answered the redhead after a second's hesitation, reminding herself to speak her rank in English instead of as an honorific. She popped out briefly, spotted a ZAFT Red, and let off a burst of suppressing fire in his direction before ducking back in cover. "Yourself?"

"Ugh, Lieutenant Murrue Ramius, Atlantic Federation Space Force," answered the brunette. Makoto's gut clenched at the confirmation that she was with the Earth Forces. "I don't know how ZAFT found out about these machines, but we can't let them have them!"

"I can pilot," said Makoto, wincing slightly at the look Murrue gave her. "ZAFT has attacked Heliopolis! As far as I'm concerned, that's all that matters now!"

After a few seconds, the lieutenant relented.

"Hamana! Cover Arata here while she preps one of the G-weapons for launch!"

* * *

Elsewhere

Kira, Sora and the blonde panted as they arrived at a shelter entrance, each more than a little exhausted and scared, not only for themselves and the colony, but for Makoto specifically.

"Damn it," muttered Kira, pressing the contact switch for the shelter. "Listen, you two get in there, I'm going back for her though."

"Not a chance!" growled Sora, but then a voice came from the speaker.

" _Is there still someone out there?_ "

"Yes," said Kira quickly, "my friends and I need to get inside. Please open the door."

" _Friends? But we're filled to capacity already! There's still shelter thirty-seven in the next block, can you make it there?_ "

"Probably," said Sora, "but there's a warzone that way. Can't you at least take even one of us?"

There was a brief pause.

" _We can take one more, but that's it. Sorry._ "

"That'll be fine, thanks," said Kira, grabbing the blonde as the door opened and pushing her inside.

"Huh? Hey what are you doing?!" she demanded.

"We live here, we know this place, but you're not from Heliopolis," said Kira. "We'll be able to move more easily without you, and this way you'll be safe."

"No, wait, please don't!" cried the blonde as the door closed and the elevator carried her down.

Kira and Sora turned to face one another before the former sighed.

"Guess you get your wish," he said sourly. "We'll have to go back through that warehouse."

"Yeah, this will fun, _loads_ of it," said Sora. "And we're gonna have to find some way of pulling your girlfriend's butt out of the fire while we're at it!"

"She's not my girlfriend and this isn't the time!" snapped Kira before running back the way they'd come, Sora on his heel.

* * *

Warehouse 13

The sounds of gunfire had been coming less and less frequently, but the fire had gotten significantly worse in the meantime. Still, Makoto would call it an improvement, though she was now unarmed, having used up the ammo from her stolen weapon as suppressing fire as she'd rushed to the controls of one of the cradles along with Petty Officer Hamana, who was now providing cover for her.

"Ramius-chūi, this machine's ready to go!" she called. "What was the state of the OS?"

"Incomplete, but we've got to try!" replied Murrue, firing off a burst of suppressing fire. Makoto stiffened at the brunette's words.

Incomplete? What, exactly, did she mean by that? Were any of these machines actually operable?

"Hey, look out!" cried Hamana suddenly, grabbing Makoto and pulling her behind him. An instant later, the sound of burst gunfire filled Makoto's ears, and warm blood splashed in her hair and on her clothes.

Somehow, the redhead managed to not scream as Hamana fell to the ground next to her, covered in blood and with several bullet holes in his body, groaning in pain. It didn't take a genius to realize he wouldn't survive long enough for medical aid.

Makoto looked up. A ZAFT Red stood at the end of the cradle, submachine gun leveled her way.

Time seemed to freeze for her for just an instant, and Makoto thought she saw a faint image in front of her of a falling jewel-like blue and green seed that suddenly exploded in a burst of light. Her pupils shrunk, her irises dilated, and instinct took over.

The redhead grabbed Hamana's fallen sidearm, leveled it at the ZAFT Red before the pilot could take aim again, and pulled the trigger three times in rapid succession. Blood burst from the ZAFT pilot's chest as two bullets tore through her torso, and as her body jerked slightly, the third bullet shot through her helmet and tore through Trisha's head. On pure reflex, she pulled the trigger of her submachine gun again, but the random burst of fire hit nothing.

Next to the console, Makoto panted, her brain catching up with what she'd just done. She'd been trained to kill, to fire a gun, even to pilot… but none of that meant she'd ever actually killed anyone before, not even in self-defense. Yes, she'd probably mortally wounded that ZAFT soldier from before, but she'd internally told herself that it was different, that he'd live. But this time, there was no denying what she'd done. So she did what was only natural in that situation.

She rolled to the side slightly and emptied the contents of her stomach on the concrete next to her.

Murrue had no idea what was going on with Makoto and Hamana; all she knew was that most of the ZAFT soldiers were dead now, but the same was true of her own subordinates. It didn't help at all that, for obvious reasons, she did not trust the redhead civilian who'd come to their aid, despite the girl's claim of military experience and seeing her take down a ZAFT soldier who'd been flanking them. Still, desperate situations called for desperate measures. Murrue had just slipped back behind cover to get a new magazine ready for her rifle when she heard a pair of voices cry out.

"Look out behind you!" "Makoto!"

Murrue instinctively spun in response to the first voice, and saw a ZAFT soldier up on the catwalk with a submachine gun. She didn't even think about what she did next, leveling her rifle and opening fire. Somehow, at least one of her half a dozen or so remaining bullets found its mark and silenced the ZAFT soldier. Murrue glanced towards the source of the cry and saw two of the three teenagers she'd spotted with Makoto earlier now standing up on the catwalk. The black-haired boy was staring at her, while the brunet was scanning the warehouse floor, evidently searching for the redhead.

"Those kids again," she muttered as she ejected her spent magazine. "Why did he…?" Murrue heard a grunt and turned her head to see that one of her subordinates had just been gunned down. She dropped her rifle, grabbed her sidearm and popped out of cover, firing twice and downing the last of the ZAFT Greens. Then she turned to look back at the teens on the catwalk.

"Come down here!" she called.

"Where's Makoto?!" said the brunet.

"Down here!" called the redhead, her stomach back under control, drawing their attention. "You idiots, I told you to leave! Damn it! Just get down here before something else explodes!" Makoto was now back on her feet.

"Are you okay?" called Kira, still not listening to either of the two women below. However, at that moment, Makoto's statement about more explosions was punctuated by an explosion from the direction he'd been intending to head once he'd dragged his childhood friend out of the fire.

"Come on," called Murrue, standing and rushing up the body of one of the mobile suits towards the cockpit. Kira and Sora started running to try and find a way down, but quickly realized the only intact stairs were at the other end of the factory.

"So, um, how do we get down there?" asked Sora.

"Well… I guess we copy Makoto," said Kira, gripping the rail. Then he pulled himself up and over it, dropping down onto the machine the brunette factory worker was on.

"Ah, right, brilliant," muttered Sora dryly. "Follow the lead of the crazy chick who leapt into a warzone." However, before he could follow his crazy sempai in mimicking Kira's even crazier girlfriend, another explosion shook the factory, and the catwalk gave out partially under his weight. "Oh, no, _this_ is what's brilliant." Not able to make a safe jump, Sora instead pulled and ran to a stable catwalk.

"Just get into one of the mobile suits and shut the hatch!" called Murrue. "This factory could blow at any minute!"

Meanwhile, Makoto had clambered onto the mobile suit cradle and then up onto the X206 proper. Her pupils were still shrunk, but her vision was arguably better than it had ever been, rather impressive given the circumstances, even though she was still processing the stupidity of Kira and Sora coming back for her.

That was how she realized she wasn't alone up here, with another ZAFT Red standing at the mobile suit's feet. He spotted her and raised his submachine gun, but Makoto acted first, raising her borrowed sidearm and firing twice at the ZAFT soldier. She didn't know if both bullets hit, but she did see him tumble off of the mobile suit, and she ran for the cockpit.

Kira landed on the cradle next to the mobile suit's head and climbed up onto it. He did so just in time to see Murrue fall to her knees, clutching at a wound on her right arm. Gasping, Kira rushed to her side, and saw a ZAFT Red rushing towards them with a knife.

Those eyes… Kira knew those eyes.

It couldn't be… could it?

"Athrun?" he gasped softly, eyes widening in horror. The ZAFT Red froze, his own eyes widening in shock.

"K-Kira?"

Up on the catwalk, Sora had finally reached a good place to jump from, onto the machine cradled next to the one Kira had landed on. He leapt the railing, and hoped he could land as well as his sempai had.

He did not, and the landing was rather painful, but he didn't twist or break anything, so he'd call it a success. He glanced around him, concluded that no, there wasn't anyone shooting at him, and did as he'd been instructed earlier: namely, he leapt into the cockpit, found the hatch switch, and closed the hatch.

"Hmm, maybe I should try flying this thing," he muttered to himself. "I don't relish the thought of this thing becoming my coffin."

In the cradle next to the X206 that Makoto had just shot Rusty off of was the X308, with Amelia racing across it.

 _Rusty and Trisha are down. Hard to believe_ , she thought to herself. She'd run out of ammo, so she didn't even try to shoot that girl that had shot Rusty, despite the fact that her instincts were screaming at her to kill the girl.

Instead, Amelia did the sensible thing and leapt into the cockpit.

Kira and Athrun stared at each other for a few brief seconds, Athrun's green eyes radiating shock, while Kira's violet eyes radiated a gamut of emotion, the most prominent of which was a sense of betrayal. The shocking reunion was interrupted when Murrue raised her sidearm and attempted to open fire, but she couldn't hold the gun steady, so her shots were complete misses, and Athrun turned and ran. He activated his suit thruster system to help him jump over to another cradle with an open cockpit, and made a mad dash for it, throwing himself inside and shutting the hatch.

 _Kira… it couldn't be…_

As Athrun fled, Murrue stood up and knocked the stunned Kira into the open cockpit they were standing next to before dropping into it herself. For his own part, Kira barely reacted, still trying to wrap his mind around Athrun's presence, with his gut clenching tightly at the feelings of betrayal.

Panting from adrenaline rush, Makoto dropped herself into the cockpit of the last prototype, its OS active but all but the main system monitor blank as she shut the hatch. She prayed to the Sun Goddess Amaterasu that Kira and Sora were safe and that she'd be able to get more info out of Murrue after they escaped. In the back of her mind, a voice whispered that she needed to confirm that her childhood friend had successfully gotten Cagalli to safety before idiotically turning around and coming after her.

Shaking her head, Makoto triggered the OS to full operation, glancing briefly at what was displayed as she gripped the controls, praying that she'd be able to make the machine move properly. Dimly, for her mind was currently running in overdrive, it occurred to her that she would need to make sure and turn over any information she learned to the military, assuming she somehow made it out of this alive.

 **MOBILE SUIT OPERATION SYSTEM  
/Version NV8 – N099/  
G**eneral  
 **U** nilateral  
 **N** euro – Link  
 **D** ispersive  
 **A** utonomic  
 **M** aneuver  
 **G.U.N.D.A.M Synthesis System  
O.M.N.I. Enforcer**

As another explosion shook the factory district and triggered a chain of additional explosions steadily growing bigger in size, five mobile suits broke free of their cradles with a series of loud snaps and the GAT-X303 Aegis, GAT-X308 Guardian, GAT-X105 Strike, GAT-X107 Adamant and GAT-X206 Dauntless stood up as the explosions completely engulfed the burning warehouse around them.

* * *

 **Author's Notes: So, I hope you all enjoyed that. The part I was uncertain of was basically Makoto's interactions with Murrue in this chapter. Somehow, I expect to hear a fair bit of complaining that Murrue just sort of trusted Makoto there, even though I think it's in-character for her to have done so given the exact circumstances (Natarle would've been a _completely_ different story though).  
**

 **I also wish to apologize for not having any follow-up here from the final scene of chapter one. Caridad will return to the story _much_ sooner than she did in canon, but she's still going to be out of it until at least some time post-Artemis.**

 **Anyways, things I liked about this chapter: I enjoyed Flay's scene a bit more than I should've, as it really just kind of shows off what is probably her most well-remembered character trait, but it does also serve to suggest some of the alternative character interpretation I've applied to her. Another thing is that I like this interpretation of Rusty as being more experienced; it's something born out of another story I've worked on in which ZAFT is heavily redone, such that Rusty _has_ to be more experienced than Athrun, Nicol, Yzak, and Dearka in order to actually be a member of the Le Creuset Team, and I feel it works well.**

 **And, of course, I enjoyed having a SEED triggered this early, as well as having it triggered by someone who isn't _piloting_. That's something canon could've used more of, there were definitely opportunities! (sure, one could argue that Lacus did so while on the _Eternal_ , but the exact effect that had on _anything_ was a big fat ZERO! All it did was say "Hey, Lacus probably has the SEED too!") The SEED in general is something I'm going to be making better use of than canon ever did.**

 **At any rate, hopefully next chapter won't take more than a few weeks to get done, but it depends on how much of a drain school and work are on me. Starting next chapter, I'll begin to dole out information on characters and/or mecha, as well as probably start including some kind of omake here and there. I've certainly had plenty of ideas that bordered too much on parody to be used in a story proper...**

 **All right then, I guess I'll see you all later! Please leave a review!**

 **Ja ne!**


	3. The First Experience

**What's this? An update? Nah, has to be a trick.**

 **Okay, in all seriousness, I really am sorry about not updating this (or anything else) in over a year. Life has… well, let's just say life's gotten away from me and leave it at that. But I've become gradually more and more determined to write, so hopefully updates will pick back up.**

 **Not much else to really say after a year, so** ** **…** enjoy!**

 **Note:** **Dialogue that is underlined, " like this," is being spoken in a non-English language, usually (but not always) Japanese. In this chapter, characters are only speaking in English or Japanese.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam SEED or any of the associated characters or mecha. I claim ownership of all OCs in this chapter and at least partial ownership of the original mecha designs.  
**

* * *

Third Phase: The First Experience

January 25th, C.E. 71

* * *

Heliopolis Morgenroete Factory District

Misako was throwing something of a fit as she fled with Sai and Ayane away from a GINN and towards the next colony block to try and find a shelter, all the ones they'd reached so far either full or destroyed.

Her anger, though, wasn't over the situation so much as it was the fact that Sora and Makoto were missing. If she ever found her childhood friend again, he was going to be in so much trouble for giving her the heart attack she was currently suffering from, and the only reason Makoto would be getting off easier is because the brunette wasn't nearly as worried for her.

Suddenly, a massive explosion from in front of them shook the colony, and Misako and Sai were blown off their feet by the massive gust of wind from in front of them, Ayane stumbling back while two other teens behind them, a boy and girl, got blasted as well, with the boy knocked on his butt while the girl managed to stay upright.

Then, from within that explosion, five massive forms emerged, drawing shocked stares from the civilian onlookers as each of the mobile suits landed…

… and one of them stumbled severely on landing and toppled right to the ground. Two of them landed, perfectly steady on their feet, a third landed and stumbled forward a bit, wobbling like a drunk man, while the last landed in a crouch, smashing one hand into the ground to steady itself before standing back up steadily.

"Rusty, Athrun, you guys okay?" questioned the GINN pilot, Miguel Aiman, glancing at the mobile suits and wondering which of them was in which machine.

" _Rusty and Trisha are dead,_ " said Amelia, drawing a gasp of shock from Miguel and a small one from Athrun—he'd known about Trisha, but hadn't seen what happened to Rusty. " _At least one of those machines has been boarded by an Earth Forces soldier._ "

" _No, all three of the others are piloted by the Earth Forces,_ " said Athrun, pulling back over to the GINN along with Amelia, confirming for them which machines they controlled. " _The rest of our squad was killed by the security forces as well._ "

"What?!"

Within the Strike, Murrue struggled to get her balance, while the display screens started automatically opening small windows zoomed in on things of note—the GINN, the stolen Guardian and Aegis, the Adamant that was struggling to move, the Dauntless standing unmoving facing the stolen machines, and several groups of civilians on the ground.

One of these images drew a gasp of shock from Kira.

"Sai? Ayane? Misako?" he gasped.

In the Adamant, Sora wasn't getting nearly as good of a view of things—his cameras weren't catching as much, and he struggled to get the machine standing.

"Damn, what do all these things even do?" he muttered to himself—between his complete lack of any sort of training and the mess that the OS was, moving the machine was pretty much an exercise in futility.

Things were different in the Dauntless though.

Makoto was not a computer programmer of any stripe, but she did know her way around computers and was familiar with mobile suit operating systems—she had, after all, received some training in a GINN. Being a Coordinator, she'd been able to learn quite quickly how to tune an OS to her own specifications.

That, combined with her heightened state of awareness, allowed her to quickly decipher the controls, the weapons and defenses (which, sufficed to say, shocked her, as she'd never realized Morgenroete was developing small scale beam weapons or an electrical armor system), as well as fix a few errors she found, such as the calibration for the Igelstellung vulcan guns mounted in the head.

Makoto didn't know how long she had before ZAFT decided to act again, but she muttered a prayer to Amaterasu that she'd have enough time to recalibrate the system to the point that she might be able to somehow survive the coming battle.

Miguel grit his teeth slightly and leveled his machine gun at the machine struggling to get up. He fired off a single high-explosive round near its hand and watched as that caused it to fall to the ground again. He mentally pegged it as a non-threat for the time being, shifted aim to the stumbling machine, and fired two rounds at its feet. The mobile suit wobbled dangerously, stumbling away, and he concluded that it wasn't really a big threat either.

He shifted his gun to fire at the third mobile suit, but as soon as he aimed it that way, the gray machine spread the wing binders on its back and leapt into the air before he pulled the trigger.

"What?!" gasped Miguel. Athrun gasped as well, while Amelia's eyes narrowed slightly.

" _The pilot of that machine… she's the one who killed Rusty and Trisha,_ " she said, drawing gasps from both of the others. " _There's something different about her._ "

"So it would seem," said Miguel, thinking things over quickly. "Athrun, Amelia, you two get those machines out of here. On your way out, contact Shawn and tell him to get over here and back me up. I'll test these machines and see if we can still capture them."

With that, Miguel leveled his machine gun and opened up on the machine in the air, but as he did so, something happened, it's armor sizzling and shifting colors—the limbs, torso, skirt and head turning from dull-gray to silver, while the shoulder armor and joints turned to a darker shade. A few bullets found their mark, but did absolutely no damage, causing Miguel to gape slightly in shock as the machine landed on the ground again.

"What the–?"

" _They're all equipped with a system known as Phase Shift armor,_ " said Athrun. " _While active, it renders the machine impervious to the GINN's sword and rifle._ " As he spoke, the Aegis and the Guardian activated their own PS armor, the Aegis turning red as the Guardian turned dark purple.

"Pilot of X206, identify yourself," said Murrue over the radio, though she already suspected that girl who'd come to back them up. She just hoped Hamana was with her…

" _Arata, Ramius-chūi,_ " came the young redhead's voice. " _Are Kira-san and Honda-san with you?_ "

"Just one of them," said Murrue, glancing at the boy in the cockpit with her, who had turned his attention to the image of the Dauntless in surprise. "Is Hamana with you? How is the machine handling?"

" _I've made a few recalibrations, hopefully enough to survive this,_ " said Makoto. " _But… Officer Hamana's dead…_ "

Murrue choked back a gasp. Anything further from either woman was cut off, though, as the GINN chose that moment to go charging at the Dauntless, swapping its rifle for the sword. Makoto responded by shifting the Dauntless back to avoid a slash, then lashed out with a punch, catching the GINN right in the face and sending it flying back. As it did so, the Dauntless stumbled forward slightly before the redhead managed to get it back under control.

"Um… wow, I didn't think…" Makoto was shocked. Despite the state of the OS, the Dauntless was more fluid and powerful than the GINNs she'd been trained to operate. Of course, that fluidity presented its own problems, as the machine moved different from what she'd been trained for, but she was remarkably adaptable right now.

She'd heard before of phenomena in which a person could temporarily become highly receptive to information and learning. Dimly, she wondered if she'd somehow entered such a state.

The larger part of her mind, however, focused on more important matters.

"Ramius-chūi, who do you have with you?" she asked.

" _Kira's with her,_ " came Sora's voice. " _What's going on? I can't see anything from this position!_ "

" _You may be safer like that,_ " said Murrue. " _There should be a button that says PS Armor. Find it, press it, and bunker down. Arata, you said you're trained as a pilot? Can you take down that GINN?_ "

"I have no idea," said Makoto honestly, even as the GINN returned to its feet. "This machine is very different from what I was trained to pilot and I have no idea what kind of experience the GINN pilot might have." The GINN took a combat ready stance, but did not move to attack just yet. "Still, between the armor and the weapons, maybe…"

In the Guardian, Amelia continued to eye the silver machine with a strange sensation roiling in her stomach. That girl… something about her stirred sensations in her body that she'd never felt before.

And for that reason, Amelia felt, with every fiber of her being, that the girl was the most dangerous thing she'd ever laid eyes on.

" _I told you two to get out of here!_ " said Miguel. " _That's a direct order! Get those machines back to the_ _ **Vesalius**_ _now!_ "

" _But…!_ "

"Understood," said Amelia, shifting the Guardian's controls. She couldn't think clearly like this, with the way her stomach was roiling at the mere thought of that girl. She had to get out, now, and Miguel's orders meant running was entirely justified.

Whether or not Athrun listened as well was irrelevant to her.

Makoto breathed a sigh of relief when the Guardian took off, followed seconds later by the Aegis. Even with their OS in the same state as hers, Makoto knew they'd likely destroy her in seconds.

The GINN quickly rushed at her again, swinging its sword at her in a diagonal cut. As before, Makoto shifted the Dauntless back to avoid the blade, but this time the GINN dodged her retaliatory punch. Gritting her teeth, Makoto diverted some of her focus back to looking over the specs for her machine, trying to learn everything she could about those weapon systems before she put them to work on the GINN.

For about the next minute or so, Makoto switched tactics to the defensive, focusing more on evading and keeping the GINN's attention, but then Miguel suddenly backed off.

The ZAFT ace had realized his opponent was stalling, and so he quickly focused himself on the other machines. To his surprise, the other two weren't moving.

"What's going on?" he muttered to himself. He made a snap decision, and moved towards the downed machine, raising his sword for an overhand strike.

But just as he was swinging at the immobile prototype, the silver machine slammed into him, knocking him off-balance. An alarm sounded, warning him of heavy impact damage to the left side of his machine, but then a sensor alert brought him a piece of good news: another GINN had arrived.

"Shawn, I'll distract the one that's moving," said Miguel. "You focus on the two immobile ones!"

" _Roger that!_ "

The command acknowledged, Shawn Russell flew at the Adamant, swinging his sword down on it. But even as he did so, Murrue managed to clumsily position the Strike between him and the Sora, the Strike's armor sizzling as its body turned from dull gray to almost entirely white, its torso a darker grayish shade, and Murrue managed to move both arms overhead to block the sword. However, the force of the blow caused the Strike to stumble back, only narrowly avoiding tripping over the prone Adamant.

"Hmph, guess I'll have to deal with you first," muttered Shawn, shifting his focus to the Strike. "Impressive armor, just like Athrun and Amelia said."

Shawn slashed at the Strike again, then again as Murrue desperately attempted to fend off the blows. She heard Makoto cry out for Kira over the comm. line, but the other GINN was keeping the Dauntless occupied with a constant flurry of attacks.

The Strike was off-balance and continuing to stumble back, steadily closer to the last civilians in the area. Upon realizing what was about to happen, Kira found that he couldn't sit still anymore—not with his friends in danger. Leaning forward, Kira pushed aside Murrue's arms in order to get at the controls himself.

The instant he did so, the Strike ducked under another slash unexpectedly, then stood back up while lashing out with a clumsy uppercut, clipping the GINN as Shawn instinctively pulled back.

"What the hell?" muttered Shawn in surprise, hesitating slightly—that last movement had been pretty smooth, but the mobile suit was still moving clumsily.

"You can't keep fighting like this," said Kira, "there are still people in the area." He reached for the keyboard and started typing, trying to get a look at the OS, and quickly realized what the problem was, all in the time it took the GINN to draw its machinegun and open fire, with Murrue stumbling the Strike out of the way even more clumsily then before, now that Kira was restricting the movement of her right arm. "How in the world did you plan to move this thing with an OS like this?"

"It's not complete!" objected Murrue, but Kira wasn't listening, his eyes widening in shock as he found confirmation of what he'd feared for some time.

"So it's true," muttered Kira, turning to look at Murrue. "These machines are using my program for the OS." Murrue blinked in surprise.

"What did you say?!"

However, the two were distracted as Shawn came back in with his sword.

Meanwhile, Makoto had found an opening in the flurry of attacks by suddenly reversing her momentum, before forward instead of backing away and shoulder-checking the GINN, sending the green machine tumbling to the ground. The pilot ignited the main thruster in order to push it back to its feet in a quick, smooth motion that spoke of the man's skills, but the few seconds of relief were all Makoto needed.

Having managed to get enough of a feel for the machine to compensate for the incomplete OS and the differences from her previous flight training, Makoto was ready for her counterattack, drawing a cylinder from the Dauntless' left hip… and then she activated it, a blade of blue plasma igniting from the beam saber handle. With a slight snarl, Makoto went charging at the GINN.

"What the hell?!" cried Miguel in shock as he dodged the somewhat clumsy initial slash. "What is that thing?!"

"The beam saber weighs nothing," muttered Makoto as she pulled back slightly, "I'm overcompensating." She was, after all, used to fighting with the heavier weapons of the GINN. Her fingers danced across the keyboard, making a quick, temporary fix to the OS. "This should be better."

The Dauntless drove forward again and Makoto's slash was considerably smoother this time, prompting Miguel to try and parry it instead… only to have the blade cut straight through his sword and continue on to slice off the GINN's head and a part of its right arm.

Miguel had just enough time to gasp in shock before Makoto delivered a heavy punch to the GINN's torso, sending it crashing to the ground and badly jostling Miguel, who hit his head hard against his seat and passed out.

While Makoto had been dealing with Miguel, Shawn had managed to knock the Strike over entirely, badly jostling the two occupants and nearly dropping it on the last of the civilians in the area.

Since the civilians in question included some of his friends, Kira decided to take action.

"Get out of the way," he snapped at Murrue as he starting typing away at the keyboard, "there's no way you can operate this thing with an OS like this—the program was designed for exoskeleton robotics control, not to drive a mobile suit!"

"Do you honestly expect me to believe that you designed this OS?!" demanded Murrue hotly, but Kira wasn't listening, distracted as he was by trying to rebuild the program to something more appropriate. Fortunately, the GINN that had been attacking them seemed to have moved off.

"Just get out of the seat, I don't have time to show you how to use this thing, there are still civilians out there, and Makoto needs help," said Kira, frustrated; Murrue hesitated for only a second before relenting, because really, at this point, what was the worst that could happen?

As soon as Murrue vacated the seat, Kira took her place in it, and stood the Strike up even as he continued to reprogram the OS; it was at this point that the two realized why the GINN hadn't continued to attack them: it had moved instead to intercept the Dauntless after Makoto defeated the other GINN. While relieved that Makoto was okay, it did nothing to shake Kira's determination to stop that thing.

"Oh no you don't," he growled, rushing forward and grabbing the GINN from behind with the Strike's left hand. "This ends now!" A compartment in the Strike's right hip opened up and partially ejected a folded assault knife. Kira grabbed the Armor Schneider, unfolded it, and stabbed it into the GINN's neck.

" _Ramius-chūi, Kira-san, get back!_ " came Makoto's voice; Kira didn't need to be told twice, moving the Strike away from the GINN… and then the Dauntless skewered the cockpit on its beam saber.

Silence followed for a moment, disturbed only by the panting over the radio, the civilians on the ground and the sound of the fires from the burning warehouses.

"Makoto… was that really necessary?" asked Kira, feeling sick to his stomach.

" _You can't disable a GINN with a knife to the neck Kira-san,_ " replied Makoto, sounding a bit shaken herself, " _and while I seem to have knocked out the other GINN pilot, I didn't think my odds for doing it again were good, and this way the GINN isn't going to explode either._ "

" _So it's over,_ " said Sora. " _Um… what now?_ "

" _Ramius-chūi? Given the circumstances, I'm willing to follow your lead._ "

Murrue blinked in surprise before leaning forward a bit.

"Um, yes," she said uncertainly, "well, for now, retrieve the Adamant; we'll get out of the machines and talk directly." She glanced at her injured arm, wondering how long she had before the adrenaline ran out and the wound started hurting again. "That will also give us a chance to treat our injuries."

" _Roger that; we should also get that GINN pilot out of the… oh crap!_ "

As they'd been speaking, the GINN in question had started moving again, standing back up; fortunately, instead of attacking, it simply lifted into the air and fled.

" _Huh… I guess he decided it was time to cut losses and run. Good thing too, I'm not sure I could've really kept up with how things are now._ "

* * *

Heliopolis Airspace

While things had begun going decidedly downhill for ZAFT within the colony, outside of it, the ZAFT forces had taken almost total control of the airspace.

Oh, the Alliance and Orb forces hadn't done too badly for themselves, managing to take out four of the seven GINNs that had remained outside, but the Orb mobile armors had been wiped out, and all that remained to fight the remaining mobile suits were the Moebius Zero and the _Chartres_.

" _Lieutenant La Flaga, we've lost control! We're… AAHHH!_ "

The _Chartres_ collided with the side of Heliopolis and Mu found himself alone against three GINNs and two ZAFT warships. The mobile armor ace growled in frustration as he pursued the GINN that had damaged the _Chartres_ and left it to crash.

"Can't we do something about this difference in battle strength?!" demanded Mu angrily, tired at this point of being so thoroughly outmatched.

He fired his linear gun on the GINN, but the pilot had pulled out of his crosshairs as he was pulling the trigger and the round missed be a wide margin.

Unwilling to waste anymore of his limited supply of power and ammo for the linear gun, Mu instead redeployed all four of his gunbarrels and opened fire from all directions, destroying the GINN's rifle and landing several shots on its right arm and main body, forcing the GINN to withdraw, though Mu was sure that ZAFT would be able to repair it in a matter of hours.

Still, this left him with only two GINNs. He could manage that, and hope that his allies within the colony were doing better. But then he spotted two mobile suits exiting Heliopolis, and cursed when he realized what had happened.

* * *

The _Vesalius_

"Olor's taken damage," said the hangar control officer. "Prepare for emergency landing, fire crews to B Deck."

"Olor's been disabled in a battle as simple as this?" muttered Ades in surprise.

"From the looks of it, we have an unforeseen problem," said Rau. "A rather annoying fly buzzing around."

"Huh?"

"Sir, transmission from Athrun Zala and Amelia Hawkins; they say that three of the machines are still in enemy hands and that Miguel and Shawn stayed behind to determine if capture is still viable."

Rau frowned slightly.

"I see… then that can only mean that Rusty and Trisha failed," he said. "That's certainly odd, and it may mean there are more unforeseen problems than him." Rau unbuckled his seat and pushed himself towards the rear of the bridge. "I'm launching; I'll deal with the final mobile armor and go check on Miguel and Shawn personally. Signal all other forces to withdraw."

"Yes Commander."

* * *

Heliopolis

Without being attacked by GINNs, Sora was able to get the Adamant moving just well enough that Makoto was able to help him move the machine into a temporary standby position, kneeling in such a way that a person could hop into it easily from the ground. Kira had already moved the Strike into a similar position and was helping Murrue out of the cockpit, so Makoto mimicked their positions and powered down, though she left the OS running, having set it to a short diagnostic that would hopefully give her more information on how to program it into something more functional.

By the time the redhead stepped out of the Dauntless, grateful to be out of the tight confines of the cockpit, Sora and Kira were on the ground helping Murrue tend to her injury. Makoto stared at them, still a bit angry at them for coming back, but grateful that Cagalli's absence meant she was almost certainly safe. Then, for just a second, her vision blurred and she blinked, shaking her head trying to clear it. After the GINN had left, the sharpness had faded from her vision and hearing, and she was still a bit disoriented from it, chalking it up to a simple adrenaline rush.

"Sora! What the _fuck_ were you doing in that thing you _IDIOT?!_ "

Makoto blinked in surprise. She knew that voice, but she'd never heard such language or tone from her new friend. She turned her attention in that direction and caught sight of the girl screaming primal fury as she led a group of teen over to them in her mad charge to apparently strangle her childhood friend.

"Misako! Ayane! Sai!" cried Sora in relief, stepping away from Murrue and Kira, which unfortunately just made him an easier target as Misako reached him and slugged him right in the face.

"Do you have any idea how fucking worried we were?!" screamed Misako. Before she could get any further though, Makoto stepped between the two.

"Miyamura-san, please calm down," she said, raising her hands placatingly. "I think your voice could penetrate vacuum the way you're going."

Misako looked enraged for half a second, until she saw the look in Makoto's eyes: exhaustion, terror, and something almost predatory. The sight of it caused her anger to deflate at least somewhat.

"Fine," she said, folding her arms in a slight huff. "But I want someone to please explain what's going on. Right now."

"I'm not entirely clear on the details myself actually," said Makoto, glancing over at Murrue, whose wound was now wrapped in a makeshift bandage torn from the sleeve of her uniform.

"Fine, then tell us what you _do_ know," said one of the two teens that had followed Kira's friends, a Japanese boy with brown hair and eyes. Behind him, the brown-haired girl was staring at Murrue, a small look of concern in her soft blue eyes.

Murrue grunted.

"I guess there's not much point in hiding things any longer," she said, staring pointedly at Makoto. The redhead got the hidden message: her presence—and what Murrue likely suspected about her—was actually forcing the Atlantic lieutenant to cooperate.

The brunette woman let out a small sigh.

"I don't know how long we've got, so I'll try to make this quick," she said. "The Atlantic Federation has been developing new mobile weapons here with the aid of Morgenroete. These are three of them." She looked up at the Strike, Dauntless, and Adamant. "ZAFT must have found out about the prototypes somehow, and decided to either steal or destroy them. Obviously, they didn't care what happened to the colony itself."

Makoto turned a hard glare on the lieutenant as she walked over to her.

"This is neutral territory," said Makoto. "Or at least it was until you brought your war here. Unfortunately, it really doesn't matter at this stage. Heliopolis is under siege by ZAFT, and they got at least two of the prototypes. Given what's on the computer mainframe of the one I flew, I'd say they've got more than enough evidence to accuse Orb of violating its neutrality."

The redhead closed her eyes, feeling a slight ache in her heart as she relayed the next grim realization.

"Orb will be forced to treat Heliopolis as a rogue colony," she said softly. "They won't be able to help us without essentially joining the Alliance. There are no Alliance forces nearby except for Artemis, but Eurasia's relationship with the Atlantic is frosty at best. ZAFT has us outnumbered and outgunned by at least a 2-to-1 margin and has pilots with actual experience, and all we've got to defend ourselves with are three largely untested prototypes without proper working operating systems and little in the way of weapons, supplies or power."

The others stared at her, the civilians a bit aghast, and Murrue with a small glare of her own.

"The smart thing to do now is run for the nearest shelter and hope we make it safely to Orb after ZAFT is finished destroying the colony," said Makoto, opening her eyes. "But somehow, I don't think that's an option."

"It isn't," said Sai, adjusting his glasses slightly. "Every shelter we've reached has either been full or… well, destroyed. It would take hours for us to find a shelter to use, even if we used these machines to check them all more quickly."

Silence followed that statement, eventually broken by Ayane.

"What do we do now?" she asked.

Makoto hesitated slightly before turning to Murrue.

"As much as I don't like it, I think that's all on Ramius-chūi here," she said, folding her arms. The brunette lieutenant shifted uncomfortably at being put on the spot, but soon managed to compose herself.

"Given the circumstances, it would probably be best for us to work together using these machines," she said. "We might still be able to contact friendly forces, and if we can't, well… at least we can try to stop ZAFT from destroying the colony. It seems exceedingly unlikely to me that they would deploy the stolen prototypes."

"True," said Makoto, rubbing her neck as she looked around, "and Heliopolis has a reasonably strong garrison force considering its position. There's a decent chance that most of the ZAFT forces have already been destroyed." She looked at Murrue. "But still… what now? As I said, I'll follow your lead, Ramius-chūi."

Murrue shifted just slightly, the only outward display of nervousness about the idea of actually leading in combat.

"First thing, I'd like to know who all of you are," she said.

"Miriallia Haw," said the young brunette girl.

"Tolle Koenig," added the boy, who had his arms folded and was the most visibly angry at the situation.

"Sai Argyle."

"Ayane Honda."

"Misako Miyamura."

"Sora Honda."

"Kira Yamato."

Murrue nodded as each of them introduced themselves before speaking up.

"And I'm Murrue Ramius of the Atlantic Federation." She looked around before turning to Makoto. "What's the status of the Dauntless?"

Makoto shook her head.

"Not optimal," she said. "Aside from the beam sabers, it's effectively unarmed; no ammo for its weapons and I'm missing the other equipment. Plus, I need to finish my work on the OS if I'm gonna fly it."

"Yes, I was curious about that," said Murrue. "If we survive this, I'll want an explanation."

"You'll get it."

Murrue nodded as she looked at the other two machines. "The Strike's power reserves are low due to the number of blows it took. Its Igelstellungs aren't loaded, and with no Striker pack, all it has are the assault knives. I'm not sure about the Adamant's power reserve, but it should have beam sabers and beam guns."

Murrue let out a small sigh, thinking things over for a moment before she turned to the civilians.

"Who among you knows the layouts of the factory district?"

After a brief hesitation, Kira, Sai, Ayane and Tolle raised their hands. Murrue gave a small nod.

"Alright then; Sai, Tolle, I'd like you two to head to Warehouse 4; it should still be intact. You'll find several trailers inside. We need trailers 6 and 8-2. And please hurry."

"Got it," said Sai, turning to Tolle. "Let's go."

"Yeah, sure."

As the two ran off, Murrue focused on the others.

"Kira, you were pretty quick to reprogram the OS," she said. "You said it was your program. Do you think you could use it in combat again?" Kira looked away.

"Yeah, probably," he said, "but…"

"I understand if you're reluctant to fight again," said Murrue, "but right now, the situation is desperate for all of us."

Kira let out a small sigh before nodding.

"I understand," he said, "I'll get to work on it."

"Thank you," said Murrue before turning to the only other person who seemed to really grasp what was going on. "Makoto, please go ahead and finish the work you wanted to on the Dauntless."

"Sure thing, Ramius-chūi."

"For now, the rest of you should just rest and hope for the best; we could use your help when the trailers get here, but…"

"Sure, just keep me out of that thing," said Sora, motioning to the Adamant. Murrue nodded in acknowledgment before walking over to the Adamant herself to try and contact friendly forces. Once she was a bit away from them, Makoto turned her attention to Kira and Sora.

"That girl we were chasing," said Makoto, "did she make it out?"

"Yeah, we got her into a shelter," said Kira. "It was full though, so…"

"I see."

Sora scoffed, drawing their attention.

"Why don't you just tell her what you told me," he said, before turning his attention to the redhead. "Kira-senpai here was planning to go back for you even if there was room."

"Kira-san…" said Makoto softly, turning her attention to her childhood friend, who sighed slightly.

"I won't let my friends get hurt," he said. "Not if I have the power to protect them."

Silence followed that declaration before Makoto broached one final subject.

"Kira-san… Ramius-chūi said the OS program was yours. Is that right?"

Deflating a bit, Kira nodded.

"Yeah… when I saw it, I recognized it as the program I've been working on at the college," he said.

"In that case, I'd like your help with the Dauntless OS, as soon as you've finished work on the Strike."

Kira stared at her numbly for a moment before nodding.

* * *

Heliopolis Airspace

Mu's surprise (and perhaps a small bit of relief) at the ZAFT retreat order had been undercut within seconds by the feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach, both from the sight of two of their prototypes evidently stolen, and the sudden realization of just who he was actually up against.

As Mu glided through space in search of his nemesis, his thoughts drifted slightly to his past encounters with the enigmatic ZAFT Commander.

The first time Mu and Rau had fought was during the Bloody Valentine, the very first battle of the war, with neither able to gain a decisive advantage, and their duel ended prematurely when Mu joined the forces deserting the battle after the Bloody Valentine, disgusted as many others had been by the use of a nuclear warhead on a civilian target at the start of the war.

The next time the two did battle was at the start of Operation Uroboros, when the fleet Mu was assigned to tried to intercept the ZAFT drop forces the day after the April Fool Crisis. The fight did not last long, with the Seventh Orbital Fleet withdrawing mere moments into the battle when it became obvious the ZAFT drop forces had already deployed.

After that, the two clashed several times during the Grimaldi Conflict on Luna, neither of them ever gaining a decisive victory over the other until the Battle of Endymion, where Rau effortlessly defeated Mu, who was exhausted, low on ammo and had lost two of his four gunbarrels during the course of the battle leading up their clash.

That had been the last the two had fought, despite both being involved in the month-long L4 Conflict. This would be the first encounter between the Crucible of Yggdrasil and the Hawk of Endymion since the latter had earned his reputation on the Grimaldi Front.

Mu was drawn out of his contemplation when his gut starting screaming at him, jerking his machine upwards as a burst of seventy-six millimeter bullets tore through the space he had just occupied.

"Le Creuset," he growled in his throat. "I should've known you'd be the one to attack a neutral colony like this."

In the CGUE, Rau grit his teeth as Mu evaded his attack and deployed his gunbarrels for a counterattack—even a pilot as skilled as Rau had difficulty with those things and he only knew of one pilot who'd taken out more than a single Moebius Zero in one go.

"You're always getting in my way Mu," snapped Rau, though of course his foe wouldn't hear the words. Rau's expression suddenly shifted into a smirk. "Though I imagine you'd probably say the same about me."

At that instant, Rau shifted and flew into Heliopolis, knowing that Mu would pursue him even though the colony interior would be an extremely disadvantageous place to try and fight a mobile suit.

"That's right Mu," murmured Rau as he saw the mobile armor following him on radar. "That's right… pursue me into the jaws of death."

* * *

Morgenroete Heliopolis Shipyard

Mu wasn't the only one seething at that particular moment.

Despite the best efforts of the ZAFT infiltrators, not only had the ship they'd been trying to destroy survived effectively undamaged, but so had a handful of the Earth Forces soldiers, all thanks more or less to the Orb practice of over engineering everything they could.

Ensign Natarle Badgiruel, a woman with extremely dark purple eyes, severe features, strictly military regulation length black hair and an admirable figure as long as no one mentioned it to her, was the highest-ranking survivor in the shipyard, and was in fact the only commissioned officer.

The other survivors were Arnold Neumann, a senior NCO trained as a reserve pilot, Kojiro Murdoch, the lieutenant of the deceased chief mechanic, a trio of security guards and five junior mechanics.

For as lucky as they could be considered given the circumstances, it did not stop Natarle from being furious at their situation, though she managed to hide it well. Only herself and Arnold were remotely qualified for bridge operations, but even speaking optimistically she'd need at least three people to get the prototype warship out of the busted shipyard hangar.

So she'd recruited the person most likely to be able to do something, namely Murdoch.

"Well, on the bright side, they've included some pretty straightforward instructions," said Murdoch, sitting at the operations station behind the captain's seat. He glanced down towards the CIC. "Seems a bit odd, doesn't it?"

"It does," admitted Natarle, having taken control of the entire CIC at the fire control station, "but now isn't the time to be worrying about it."

"Maybe those rumors about Orb's fortress policy are true," suggested Arnold, "because the more I look this over, the more I begin to think this ship was designed to be capable of running with only three people."

"Good thing a trained monkey could do this then," said Murdoch, "because otherwise you wouldn't even have that much to work with." He input a few commands. "There we go, ship's drawing power from the shipyard facilities. Looks like some of them were damaged in the attack though, so its still gonna take awhile to bring it up to operational status."

"It's still better than nothing," admitted Natarle with a sigh. "Now we just wait…"

* * *

Heliopolis Interior

Without any ZAFT attacks disturbing them, it hadn't taken long for Kira to finish the necessary modifications, after which he'd joined Makoto in the Dauntless to finish that OS as well. After only a few moments, he headed back out to rest, joined moments later by Murrue after she'd failed to raise any friendly forces through the jamming that was still in effect. Makoto, on the other hand, had remained in the Dauntless, continuing to fine-tuning the OS in order to avoid any incidents like the earlier one with the beam saber.

Down in the Orb Mainland, Makoto's reserve force boot camp had included training as a mobile suit pilot, specifically using a GINN obtained by the Orb military. However, the GINN was a significantly less fluid machine than the new prototypes were, and while the OS was generally supposed to handle concerns of weapon mass, this OS was still in early design, even if it was now effectively complete. The GINN weapons she'd gotten used to were significantly heavier than those of the Dauntless, and so she was forced to put extra focus on making sure the Dauntless OS would compensate.

It wasn't perfect—it'd take her awhile to get it there—but Makoto was now reasonably confident that she wouldn't face any of the issues fighting that she had earlier.

Which was just as well—Makoto glanced at one of her monitors and saw two trailers approaching them, prompting her to step out of the cockpit.

"Ramius-chūi, they're here with the trailers."

* * *

Heliopolis Central Shaft

Mu knew why Rau had dragged the battle into the Heliopolis interior, but that didn't stop him from becoming frustrated and angry over it.

While the Moebius Zero could maneuver through the "buildings" of the interior shaft just as well as the CGUE, Rau didn't have any kind of restrictions in how he aimed, whereas Mu needed to shift the Zero's entire body to face his opponent in order to open fire.

Then, just to make things worse, Mu detected another mobile suit in the shaft and bit out a curse.

" _Commander Le Creuset,_ " came a voice over the CGUE's radio—a voice Rau had never expected to hear again, and left even him blinking in surprise behind his mask.

"Rusty, is that you?" questioned Rau.

" _Yeah, I managed to escape,_ " said Rusty, " _but Shawn and Miguel were beaten; Shawn's dead and I've got Miguel unconscious in here. I should get him back to the ship, unless you need me here…?_ "

With a faint, surprised smirk, Rau shook his head.

"No Rusty, see to it that Miguel gets medical treatment," he said, "I'll deal with the Hawk, then take a look at those mobile suits myself. Don't worry, I'll be careful."

" _Yes sir,_ " replied Rusty as the GINN pulled past the battling CGUE and Zero and headed for the exit.

"Alright then Mu, I think it's time I ended this," said Rau, preparing to start his assault on the Zero's gunbarrels. "That way I can take a closer look at these remarkable mobile weapons your people seem to have devised."

* * *

Meanwhile

While Sai and Kira went to work mounting the Striker pack under Murrue's guidance, Makoto took a moment to sit down on a bench and rest herself.

So much for her vacation; now, instead of relaxing for the final days of her visit to Heliopolis, the redhead found herself putting all those skills she'd trained to use. Put in a dangerous, stressful situation, Makoto had fallen back on her training, and was acting coolly towards others, and even somewhat hostilely towards Murrue, venting her anger at the Alliance through the lieutenant.

It also helped her psychologically in the face of her own actions: she'd been forced to kill three people today just to survive, was responsible for the death of a fourth, and was preparing to kill even more in defense of a nearly empty colony and her friends who had nowhere else to turn.

She really wished she could be back home with her friends—attending school, hanging out at the beach, partying, school responsibilities…

Anything would've been better than where she was now.

Suddenly, Miriallia sat down next to her, surprising Makoto slightly.

"How are you feeling?" the brunette asked. Makoto shrugged.

"Not great," she said, "but not too bad all things considered. Either way, sorry you got caught up in this, Haw-san."

"It's not your fault," said Mir. She glanced at the Dauntless. "You know, it's funny, but in a way, I admire you and that Kira kid… I don't think I could muster up the courage to fly those even if I were able to pull it off."

Makoto shook her head.

"I have training as an Orb reserve pilot," she said, "so it's really not that bad for me. It's Kira-san who's really admirable…"

A shadow suddenly fell over the two, who glanced up to see Tolle standing there, looking pretty grouchy, not that anyone could blame him.

"So why aren't you getting the equipment off the other trailer?" he asked Makoto with a slight edge in his voice. The redhead shrugged slightly.

"Mostly because the equipment is of a very different nature from whatever that is they're attaching to the Strike," she said. "It really won't take long at all to have it ready if we're attacked." Makoto hesitated briefly before letting out a small sigh and giving Tolle an apologetic look. "I'm sorry you've gotten caught up in this, Koenig-san. But I promise I'll do what I can to get you through this."

Tolle looked surprised at that and his body posture lost some of the anger he'd been carrying.

"Ah, um… yeah, okay," said Tolle, seeming almost sheepish suddenly. "I guess we can't ask more of you, and you're probably even more on edge than most of the rest of us."

"When this is all over, we should try meeting up," suggested Mir with a smile. "I'd really like to get to know you better Makoto, and the others too of course."

Makoto's lips were starting to form into a smile… and then she suddenly saw Ayane stumble an instant before the sound of an explosion reached their ears, prompting everyone to look up at the central shaft.

To Makoto and Murrue, it was obvious the explosion had come from inside the shaft, so they were only somewhat surprised when a CGUE burst out of the explosion followed by a Moebius Zero with no gunbarrels, and Makoto immediately bolted towards the Dauntless.

"Hurry up and mount the equipment!" shouted Murrue to Kira and Sai. Even as the two continued to work and Makoto hopped into the cockpit of the Dauntless, the CGUE above them approached, only to suddenly jerk away with the Zero in pursuit.

Makoto brought the Dauntless out of standby mode and activated the Phase Shift armor before grabbing the sword and shield from the trailer, while Kira finished mounting the Launcher Striker and activated his own PS armor just in time for the CGUE to slice off the barrel of the Zero's linear gun.

Before Kira, Makoto, or the CGUE had a chance to act against one another, though, another explosion suddenly rocked the colony, loud enough that Murrue and the civilians on the ground were forced to cover their ears as the fire erupted from one end of the colony… and a massive white warship emerged into Heliopolis.

* * *

 **Author's Notes: Well, that's that. I hope it was enjoyable, and I'm once again sorry for the delay, especially when so much of this chapter was already written for the previous reboot. I really struggled with the portions that were changed by the reinterpretation of Makoto's character.**

 **Rusty, as I'm sure many of you have guessed, will play a much larger role in this story than he ever normally does. I'm looking forward to it, and I hope all of you will enjoy it as well.**

 **Beyond that, I want to note that this is a story that will focus a great deal on the relationships of the characters and the background information. Hence, Mu's scenes discussing what is, admittedly, well-known in the fandom, but that I'm expressing because one of the reasons for all of this is to learn to write original stories for publishing. If I can do that, I'll probably have a lot more free time to do what I love: write.**

 **Not much more to say beyond that; much of this is a rehash of my last reboot.**

 **Still, please leave a review everyone! I really want to know how I'm doing after so long away, if there are areas I can improve, that sort of thing.**

 **Hope to see you all soon! Sayōnara!**


	4. Shattered Homeland

**An update after only a week?! Everybody find a bunker before the meteor hits!**

 **Okay, joking aside, I really am doing better as far as my writing goes. I'm hoping to be back to updating at least once every couple of weeks, preferably once a week. I'm also hoping to wrap up some of my unfinished work (which primarily means _Naruto: Bloodlines_ at this point), as well as get back to long-sitting projects that are severely overdue for work.**

 **Moving on, there is one other project I've had in mind that I want to mention and gauge possible interest for: a SEED Destiny rewrite that is relatively short and, notably, does _not_ feature upgrades. Or even Kira and Shinn being enemies. The concept, as a whole, focuses on a few select characters from  SEED Destiny and a cast of OCs in an original story that, opening and one subplot aside, pays almost no heed to canon. Sound interesting? (this project is a long way off regardless)**

 **Anyways, enough of that. On with the show!**

 **Note: As in previous chapters, underlined dialogue is being spoken in a non-English language. We're still on only Japanese for that language at this time.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam SEED or any of its associated characters or mecha. I claim ownership of all OCs currently in this story, and as much ownership as a I can for the custom mecha featured here.**

* * *

Fourth Phase: Shattered Homeland

January 25th, Cosmic Era 71

* * *

Heliopolis

Kira really wasn't sure if today could get any worse. It all started out okay, but then Sora and Ayane showed up to tell him that Kato had more work for him and it all went downhill from there and just kept going.

And the brunet really, _really_ hoped it would finally stop, because at this point, the only way he felt it could get worse than a warship bursting into the colony would be for Heliopolis to literally come apart at the seams.

Aboard the great white warship itself, Arnold and Murdoch were fighting down slight panic attacks as they realized that a CGUE was in the colony and had apparently been engaged with the Dauntless and Strike on the ground. Natarle was a bit calmer, but…

"Damn it, how are we supposed to fight that thing like this?" she muttered to herself, trying—and failing—to run the entire CIC by herself while Arnold just focused on keeping the ship flying straight and not crashing into one of the cables connecting the outer colony walls to the central shaft.

Then an answer came over the radio.

" _Do not engage the CGUE, repeat, do_ _ **not**_ _engage!_ " came the half-frantic female voice. " _Your ship's heavy weapons could inflict critical damage to the colony!_ "

As Makoto transmitted those words, she went charging full-tilt at the CGUE, the quad-wings of the Dauntless at full spread. The CGUE shifted its attention to the Dauntless, immediately leveling its rifle and opening fire, only to see the prototype take every round head on without so much as a scratch before it was suddenly on top of him, swinging its sword at him. Rather than taking any chances regarding the capabilities of this unknown machine, Rau opted to tumble out of the way rather than try to parry or block.

"Even an enhanced APSV couldn't scratch it," muttered Rau, leveling the gatling gun in his shield and opening up at full-auto. "Quite impressive."

The Dauntless withstood the gatling fire quite easily, though Makoto was quick to move her shield in place as she took a half second glance at the uncomfortably low power meter.

"Come on Makoto, remember your training," the redhead muttered to herself as she hit the switch for her sword. The handle suddenly shifted, moving the blade to a new angle instead of straight relative to the handle, and she pointed the sword at the CGUE like a rifle before squeezing the trigger.

The beam of energy lancing through the air suddenly caught Rau off-guard and probably would've killed him right then and there if his opponent's aim hadn't been slightly off, failing to properly account for his evasive maneuvering.

But then, all of a sudden, red filled one of his peripheral cameras and a massive stream of energy, something that could rival the shot from the main guns of a warship, passed within meters of Rau's position. Heat from the beam washed over the CGUE, and the right arm melted slightly, becoming twisted and deformed half a second before the ammo in his rifle suddenly detonated, destroying around half of the compromised arm.

Meanwhile, the red beam continued on to strike the colony wall, blasting right through it with apparent ease, while several colony cables suddenly snapped under the stress of the impact added to the heat that had compromised sections of them.

The Earth Forces mobile suits took no more action, so Rau wisely flew his CGUE towards the hole in the colony, idly checking over the damage readout display.

"How is that possible?" he muttered to himself. "A mobile suit with that much firepower and such impressive armor…"

In spite of the situation, Rau found himself smirking in delight.

* * *

The _Vesalius_

Athrun and Amelia were caught off-guard when they heard that Miguel's GINN was returning with damage to the head and arm. But what _really_ surprised them was when the cockpit popped open and a ZAFT Red emerged dragging Miguel's groggy form out with him.

"Rusty!" cried Athrun, pushing off from the Aegis towards the GINN. Rusty handed Miguel off to a few mechanics before turning to Athrun. "We thought you were dead."

"Oh come on, you think a little fire will kill me?" asked Rusty with a faint chuckle.

"Maybe not fire, but I saw you get shot by that redhead slip," said Amelia as she grabbed the side of the GINN to halt her momentum near the cockpit. "I wouldn't expect anyone to escape the destruction with bullet wounds."

"Ah, yes, well… she missed."

"You went tumbling off the side."

Rusty merely chuckled, shaking his head as he pushed away from the GINN in the general direction of the Aegis. The other two Reds pushed off after him.

"What happened after we left?" asked Athrun, feeling a bit anxious about the person he could swear was Kira now that the shock of Rusty's survival was wearing off a bit.

"Short version? The machine that was standing without wings stumbled about, then started moving with relative precision and fighting with knives. The winged one took out the head and arm of that GINN, then punched it and knocked Miguel out. They double-teamed Shawn and destroyed his cockpit, while I ran over to the downed GINN, hopped inside, and got the hell out of there."

"So Shawn's dead as well," said Amelia matter-of-factly. "Our enemies may be more dangerous then we realized… and as I said, that girl flying the winged unit is… different."

"Well, she put down Trisha in short order," said Rusty, tone suddenly grim. "I'm still not sure that I didn't blink. One second, Trisha's taking aim, that girl is cowering with a dead soldier next to her, then the next second she's grabbed a gun from several feet away and put several bullets in Trisha." He shook his head. "It's probably just my mind playing tricks on me though—being able to move like that just isn't human, Natural _or_ Coordinator."

* * *

Heliopolis

Sufficed to say, Rau's quiet amusement at the situation sharply contrasted with the feelings of the civilians on the ground and a certain redhead reserve pilot.

"Son of a bitch!" cursed Makoto as she stared at the damage to the colony from Kira's reckless shot, though she'd concede that he couldn't have realized how powerful that cannon really was—Makoto didn't know, and she had some experience with what heavy weapons could do in general, and what these beam weapons could do in particular.

The Dauntless turned to stare down at the Strike, but Makoto's eyes focused primarily on Murrue, whose attention was also locked on the damage. Ooh, the lieutenant was getting an earful for having them grab a weapon like that, the redhead would see to _that_!

Makoto's attention was quickly drawn away by the _Archangel_ though as the ship began maneuvering clumsily towards a clear area near the Strike. Letting out a faint sigh, the redhead deactivated her PS armor and flew the Dauntless in that direction.

A few minutes later, the _Archangel_ had landed and opened its starboard catapult, allowing the Dauntless and Strike to squeeze in, the latter carrying Murrue and the civilians on its hand, while the Moebius Zero landed in front of the prototype warship.

The passengers were just stepping off the Strike's hand when Natarle and the other survivors from the shipyard came running down the catapult.

"Lieutenant Ramius!" called Natarle, relief just barely audible in her tone.

"Ensign Badgiruel," replied Murrue, her own relief much more evident. "It's good to see that you're safe."

"And you as well."

Their attention was drawn at that instant by the cockpits of the two mobile suits opening up. Kira stepped out, letting out a faint sigh as he did so, and earning quite a bit of surprise from the crew. Makoto stepping out of the cockpit of the Dauntless was met with less surprise, perhaps because she looked older, but possibly just because of the look of cold fury on her face. While Kira used the zipline to lower himself, Makoto simply hopped down onto the Dauntless's arm, using it as a stepping stone to hop down to the catapult floor, where she more solidly locked her glare on Murrue, who shifted back nervously.

"Ramius-chūi," started Makoto coolly. "I would very much appreciate knowing what the _hell_ you were thinking when you had them grab a weapon like that when you _knew_ that we should expect to see more combat!"

Most of the group looked thunderstruck, but Murrue glanced away.

"It was a mistake," she said. "I wasn't thinking things through." She looked back to Makoto. "And I take full responsibility for that."

The redhead's fury seemed to deflate in an instant at that and she looked away, focusing instead on Kira and the group of teens surrounding him.

She couldn't fault Murrue for her mistake. Makoto knew that she herself had done plenty of impulsive things and made plenty of mistakes because she didn't think things through—and those had been under significantly less stressful situations. Granted, most had been before she'd undergone her mandatory training period and started to have to act more responsibly, but that didn't change the fact that she had no right to blame Murrue for what had happened.

"Well, this is a surprise," came a new voice, drawing everyone's attention to a blond man in a purple pilot suit walking down the catapult towards them. "Never would've expected a couple of kids to be piloting those things." He came to a stop in front of Murrue and offered her a quick salute. "I'm Lieutenant Mu La Flaga of the 7th Orbital Fleet."

"Lieutenant Murrue Ramius of Sector 2, 5th Special Division," she replied, returning the salute.

"Ensign Natarle Badgiruel, same division," added the black-haired officer next to her. Mu nodded.

"I'd like permission to come aboard," he said as Makoto walked over towards Kira. "Who's in charge here?"

There was a brief pause before Natarle spoke up.

"The captain and the rest of the senior officers were killed in the initial attack," she said. Murrue gasped in surprise. "The eleven of us were the only ones to survive, all NCOs except for myself. Therefore, I believe Lieutenant Ramius is in command."

"You mean Captain Ray's… that can't…" Murrue shook her head in denial—Captain Amir Ray and Commander Dakota Chambers had been personal acquaintances and mentors to her.

"I see," murmured Mu softly—like Murrue, he'd known Ray personally. "What an unmitigated disaster. In any case, Lieutenant, your permission…?"

"Ah… yes," said Murrue awkwardly. "Permission granted."

"Thanks," said Mu before suddenly turning his attention to the group of teens. Makoto was standing slightly apart from the group, putting herself between them and the Alliance soldiers, her bearing slightly defensive. "And who are they?" Murrue turned to face the group as well, and could sense the same question from the other soldiers.

"They're civilians who got caught up in this whole mess, mostly by accident," said Murrue.

"They are," said the redhead, motioning to the other teens. "My name's Arata Makoto, Second Lieutenant, Orb Reserve Forces." Several of the Alliance soldiers straightened up slightly on hearing that.

"The boy is Kira Yamato," added Murrue. "He was in the warehouse with a friend of his just when things were getting bad. After warning me about a ZAFT soldier flanking me, I called them down to board the machines so that they could survive the destruction of the warehouse. Kira managed to take control of the Strike and helped Makoto to fight off two GINNs."

"Fought off two GINNs?" muttered Natarle. "Those kids…?" Though honestly, her mind had pegged Makoto as older than she appeared to be if she was a second lieutenant, even a reserve one, in the Orb Self-Defense Force.

"I see," said Mu, stepping over towards the group. Makoto's stance shifted slightly, growing more defensive, and Mu immediately stopped. He smiled slightly. "So tell me, Makoto, Kira… you're Coordinators?"

The sudden tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife. Makoto said nothing, merely glaring at the soldiers in general and Mu in particular. Kira, however, after a quick glance at his friends—including the very obviously Coordinator Ayane—squared his shoulders and looked Mu straight in the eye.

"Yes."

The sound of the three security guards readying their weapons was accompanied by Makoto pulling the gun she'd taken from Hamana earlier out of who-knows-where and leveling it their way.

* * *

The _Vesalius_

"Well…" muttered Rusty to himself, "that's a thing."

He was, being completely honest with himself, pretty floored by what he was seeing: Rau's CGUE had just collided with the hangar's crash netting at something not far off from "full speed," and had immediately started getting sprayed down with external coolant. This in itself wasn't necessarily unusual, even if Rusty would never expect Rau to fly in so recklessly.

No, what caught him off-guard was the extent of the damage: besides the wreck that used to be the right arm of the CGUE, the head-fin had been snapped off, the wings were twisted husks, the armor was still red-hot in a few places, the right leg was mangled and the main thruster had been trailing smoke, which was as big a red flag as any Rusty had ever seen.

It took a few minutes for them to close and re-pressurize the hangar, during which time the CGUE was cooled sufficiently for the Crucible of Yggdrasil to comfortably exit his heavily damaged mobile suit.

"It seems I have been doomed to become a laughingstock," commented Rau lightly as he floated away from his CGUE, surveying the damage. "Allowing my mobile suit to take such damage in battle with an untested weapon of the Earth Forces…"

"Better a laughingstock than a corpse, sir," said Rusty lightly, having recovered his wits by now. "After all, between the two, the laughingstock is still the one who gets the last laugh."

"Are you insinuating something?"

"Only that I'll be prepping for the funeral of anyone stupid enough to laugh at you for surviving. After all, I've seen a bit of what those things are capable of."

Rau chuckled lowly.

"Indeed," he said. "You've done well Rusty—your team did successfully capture five out of the eight targets. Meet me on the bridge in ten minutes for a full report."

"Yes sir."

* * *

The _Archangel_

Sufficed to say, Makoto and the three security guards pointing guns at each other had served to crank the tension up even further—the slightest wrong move would likely result in someone pulling a trigger.

Makoto didn't know if pulling the gun had been the smart thing to do, but damn it, Kira was her friend, and everyone behind her was a citizen of Orb whom she had a duty to protect even without her reserve military position. Further, the fact that they'd been setoff by nothing more than Kira being a Coordinator infuriated her to no end.

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed.

"Stand down now, all of you!" shouted Mu. The sudden authority in his tone immediately caused the three soldiers to lower their rifles. Makoto waited only a second longer than they did before lowering her own sidearm. Mu focused his attention on the guards. "Being a Coordinator is _not_ the same as being in ZAFT," he said sternly. He looked over the entire group of Alliance soldiers, most of whom squirmed slightly under his gaze—the sole exceptions were Murrue and Murdoch. "I advise you all to remember that."

He turned back to the Orb citizens.

"Sorry about that," he said, his tone back to its previous lightness. "I wasn't trying to cause problems—I was just curious is all."

"Its fine," said Kira quickly, throwing a nervous glance at Makoto.

"And frankly, it's obvious we aren't all Naturals here," said Ayane, pointedly running a hand through her long blue hair.

"True enough," said Mu with a small shrug. "Well, in any case…" The blond lieutenant started to walk into the hangar.

"Um, Lieutenant La Flaga, what should we do now?" asked Murrue.

"You're asking me?" replied Mu, looking back at her. "My Zero's crippled, there are hardly any of us left, we've gotten Orb citizens caught in the crossfire and the Crucible of Yggdrasil is sitting outside. Personally, I can't see him giving up that easily."

Murrue looked down, at a loss for what to do. She'd been certain that Mu, with his experience from the battles over the last year, would be able to tell her what to do, but he almost seemed to be shrugging the matter off. She glanced over at the group of teens, almost all of whom were staring at her intently.

"Ramius-chūi," said Makoto, "if you'll allow it… I'll continue to fly the Dauntless for the time being."

There was another burst of whispers from the crewmen.

"Absolutely not," said Natarle sternly. "The Dauntless is a top secret and extremely valuable weapon. We can't just put it in the hands of…"

"Of ZAFT?" questioned Makoto with a raised brow. "Like what happened to the Aegis and the Guardian? And possibly the other three prototypes as well?"

Natarle had no retort for that.

"She's right," said Murrue. "Makoto, I'll allow it. But please bring the Adamant here as well." She turned to the others. "As for the rest of you, I want you divided into teams. We need to ready the Dauntless for combat, retrieve equipment from the factory district, and begin gathering supplies. Chief Neumann, you're in charge. Ensign Badgiruel, come with me. We'll discuss our strategy with Lieutenant La Flaga on the bridge."

* * *

The _Vesalius_

"You really saved my hide with this, Rusty, Miguel," said Rau as he stared at the recording from Miguel's GINN showing the winged mobile suit. "Without this as evidence, no one would believe it was possible for my CGUE to be damaged in battle with an Earth Forces mobile suit by any means other than extreme incompetence on my part." Rau glanced up at the six pilots in front of him—Rusty, Athrun, Amelia, Miguel, Olor, and Matthew.

"In light of this, we cannot allow them to escape," continued Rau. "However, given the defensive capabilities of these machines, we must resort to our anti-fortress weapons. You should all know what that means. The upcoming battle will be extremely dangerous, perhaps suicidally so, and the consequences severe. Therefore, I will not order any of you into the battle. This will be a volunteer only mission."

"Sir," replied five of the six pilots immediately, saluting him. Rau struggled to keep his lips from twitching into a smile as he focused on the one who hadn't signaled his volunteering for the mission.

"Rusty, I'm disappointed," said Rau. "Are you really that scared of this… 'redheaded slip of a girl' who could barely slow you down?"

"Not remotely sir," said Rusty. "I am, however, with all due respect, utterly terrified of Orb. Also, while Miguel here might be perfectly willing to fly so soon after likely getting a mild concussion, I'd rather not risk my health so soon after dodging two bullets and what was probably a several hundred ton explosion."

"Fair enough," said Rau. "Besides, even with the quick repair work we put in on Miguel's machine, we only have five units available at this time and I have no doubt that Liza and Curtis will volunteer in a heartbeat. You're all dismissed—may fortune smile upon you."

"Sir!"

As the other pilots departed, Athrun focused on Rau.

"Sir, please allow me to join the sortie," he said.

"No Athrun," said Rau. "We have no spare GINNs and I'll not pull one of our more experienced veterans away. Besides, you've already done a great deal with the capture of that mobile suit, and Miguel and Olor are eager to redeem themselves given what happened to them earlier."

"But sir…"

"No buts Athrun. Even I'm not getting involved—my CGUE is in no shape to fly and Miguel's custom GINN is, of course, still in need of parts. I'll say it again: you have no mobile suit, so you won't be flying."

* * *

The _Archangel_

Murrue, sitting in the captain's chair, let out a small sigh as she put the phone attached to the arm of the chair back on the hook.

"The interior is almost one hundred percent evacuated," said Murrue, turning to Mu and Natarle, respectively sitting and standing at the pilot station. "As far as I can tell, the only people not in shelters are either with us or already dead. However, it seems that the incident with the Strike's Agni has upped the hazard level to nine."

"So the shelters are all on total lockdown," said Mu. "Guess that means we can't find one to throw those kids into."

"Lieutenant Ramius detained those children because they've been exposed to vital military secrets," said Natarle. "We can hardly let them go free."

"I didn't detain them," said Murrue calmly, startling both of her fellow officers. "Besides, consider Makoto—whatever we may think of it, they're under her protection and right now we have to rely on her."

"I still object to the idea of letting that girl pilot the Dauntless," said Natarle. "She's with Orb and a Coordinator besides—how do we know we can trust her?"

"Are you basing your distrust on her being an Orb reserve soldier or on her being a Coordinator?" asked Mu pointedly. Natarle bit her lip. "Fact is that she's the most qualified person we've got right now and since she's Orb, its all the more reason to trust her—this is Heliopolis, after all."

"I admit to being a bit nervous about her myself," said Murrue. "But that doesn't change the situation. Makoto has the skill and ability needed to pilot and if we want to make it out of this alive then we'll be relying on the power of the Dauntless."

"Sure, but the Dauntless alone?" questioned Mu. "I'm not sure that'll work against Le Creuset. We need more, but I doubt that other kid would be willing to fly again."

"Why don't you pilot one of them?" asked Natarle.

"What, me? Are you kidding?! Have you taken a look at what the kid did to that OS? An ordinary human couldn't even grasp it anymore, the one on the Dauntless is no better and don't even get me started on the Adamant! The pilots who have been training for this for months struggled just to get the damn things to move. If you actually believe I can just hop in one and be an instant expert with a thoroughly incompatible or incomplete OS, then there's a very nice bridge across the Pacific I'd like to sell you." Natarle glared at Mu. Murrue let out a sigh.

"I think all we can do is talk to them," she said. "I'll explain the situation and see if any of them will help… assuming Makoto doesn't interfere."

* * *

Meanwhile

Down in the crew quarters, Kira and Makoto were resting, looked over by the other Heliopolis teens who'd been caught up in all this.

"It's hard to believe they can sleep at a time like this," said Tolle lightly as he sat on one of the bunks.

"They're exhausted," said Miriallia. "I mean, fighting isn't easy. It strains a person, mentally, physically, and emotionally. Especially for Kira… he wasn't trained for this."

"It's hard to imagine," added Ayane, running a hand through her hair. "Fighting like that… you're life is on the line, and any moment it could all be over…"

The others were silent in response to that for a moment before Misako spoke up.

"They said that Kira made the OS," she said, turning her attention to Sora and Ayane. "You two have been working with him at the college. Is that… true?" Slowly, the two nodded.

"We were talking about it the other day," said Sora. "Kira brought up that the program we were working on wouldn't work with the equipment we had, based on the requirements of the assignment. He showed us that the design was more appropriate to the _Tsiolkovsky_ exoskeletons used by George Glenn on his Jupiter mission." Mir's eyes narrowed.

"Those are the same exoskeletons ZAFT developed its mobile suits from," she said, grimacing slightly. "Yeah, I can see where things are coming from now."

"We figured it was probably for Morgenroete mobile weapon development," said Sai, pushing his glasses up slightly. "But we also thought it was for Orb. We didn't like the idea of helping develop weapons, but at the time, it wasn't like we had confirmation, and we figured we were helping to protect Orb if nothing else." He sighed. "Instead, we've helped develop weapons for the Earth Forces." He stood up then, his face hardening. "I just can't believe this… we're helping the people who nuked a civilian colony. That was an act of genocide, plain and simple."

"Maybe," murmured Mir, drawing their attention. "But at the same time, what ZAFT did with their N-jammers on Earth wasn't much better. Over a hundred thousand people are confirmed dead because of it." She closed her eyes. "I'm so sick of watching people kill each other."

None of them had a response to that. Unnoticed, Makoto, who was only half-asleep, frowned a bit.

* * *

The _Vesalius_

Miguel moved his GINN onto the catapult, armed with Pardus 3-barrel missile launchers on the legs and a 500mm Cattus bazooka. Olor and Matthew, also armed with Pardus missiles but carrying a pair of enormous Canus dual missile launchers instead of the bazooka, had already launched. Repairs to Miguel's temporary machine had been more or less completed in the several hours since it returned—they had spare body parts lying around and had been able to quickly replace the whole right arm and head, though some of the interior damage wasn't fixed. Miguel had been warned not to take unnecessary risks, but both he and his machine were fit to fly.

"Alright, that's the last one!" said the chief mechanic over the comm. as Miguel's GINN shot out of the catapult. "Close the hatch!"

However, before anyone could carry out the order, one of the stolen prototypes suddenly came to life, moving onto the catapult.

"Huh? Is that one going out too?" questioned one of the mechanics as the machine stepped onto the catapult.

"Nobody told me about it," said the chief mechanic darkly just as the machine suddenly shot out, its armor suddenly turning from dull grey to bright red once it cleared the catapult rails.

* * *

The _Archangel_

"I'm not gonna do it," said Kira when Murrue approached him about piloting the Strike again. "Please, don't get us any more involved in this war then you already have." Murrue stared at him for a moment before giving a slight nod.

"If that's what you want Kira," she said. "It's your decision. Please understand that I wasn't making this request lightly, but it was only a request." She looked at the Honda siblings. "What about you two?" Sora and Ayane glanced at each other uncertainly.

"Oh no you don't," said Misako suddenly, grabbing Sora and yanking him back. "I know what you're thinking you idiot, but just because you're a Coordinator doesn't mean you can pilot that thing."

"But Misako…"

"I'll do it," said Ayane, putting a stop to the brewing argument. Everyone looked at her in surprise. "I'm not sure if I can do much, but I'll still do whatever I can."

"Ayane…" murmured Sora. Kira looked down, suddenly feeling a bit ashamed.

"If you're willing, then I'll allow it," said Murrue. "But I'd rather you be certain of your decision."

"I'm sure."

"And you can't be convinced otherwise, right?" came Makoto's voice suddenly, drawing everyone's attention to where the redhead had opened her eyes. Murrue shifted slightly.

"I'm sorry for this," she said quickly. "Especially about not waking you, but I didn't want to…"

"Its fine," said Makoto softly. "I already figured I'd need help, no matter how much I didn't want it to happen." She looked at the students. "Just you then, Honda-san?"

"So it would seem," said Ayane. "Misako won't let Sora fly and Kira-senpai would rather not."

"Then that's fine," said Makoto, focusing on Kira before speaking again in Japanese. "Kira-san, please don't feel obligated to get involved. It's not your job to fight a war."

"I'm pretty sure it's not yours or Ayane-chan's either," replied Kira, perhaps a bit harshly. He was off-put by Makoto's behavior, no matter that he understood it was simply her military training taking over in a stressful situation. "Yet you still…"

"Kira-senpai, I just don't feel comfortable being a… 'sitting duck'," said Ayane.

"And reserve status or not, I still have a duty to protect Orb citizens," added Makoto. "I'll admit, I wasn't the best in my piloting class, but the Dauntless is powerful. The two of us should be able to handle it."

"You really sure of that?" asked Mir. "ZAFT's GINNs aren't pushovers."

"No, but I know the specs of both the GINN and the Dauntless, and the GINNs are critically overmatched from a technological point," said Makoto. "And personally, I find a lot of Coordinators to be suicidally overconfident when dealing with Naturals, which they hopefully still think we are." Kira shifted slightly at that.

"I guess I can't argue that point," said Mir.

As this conversation was under way, Murrue found herself glancing back and forth in confusion, understanding maybe one in ten words being spoken. Kira glanced at the others briefly before making eye contact with Sai, who gave him a small smile and slight nod that went nearly unnoticed by the others. The brunet looked at the ground.

"If I…"

" _Lieutenant Ramius, come to the bridge at once,_ " came a voice over the PA suddenly, startling everyone. Murrue immediately walked over to a computer panel on the wall, hitting the bridge intercom switch.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

" _They've cranked up the N-jammer levels, but we still managed to detect inbound mobile suits,_ " said Mu. " _We need you up here; you're in command._ "

"Hold on," said Murrue. " _I'm_ in command?!"

" _I have seniority, but I'm a pilot. I don't know the first thing about this ship._ "

Murrue sighed. "Very well," she said. "Then Lieutenant, I'd like for you to take charge of the CIC. I'll be up shortly."

" _Roger that._ "

Murrue switched off the intercom and turned back to Makoto and the students.

"Well, there you have it," she said. "We'll be going into combat again. Makoto, Ayane, please head down to the hangar. The rest of you should just try to buckle down." Kira, Sora, Misako, Sai and Tolle all looked down.

"What about the bridge?" asked Mir, catching everyone off-guard. "From what I overheard in the hangar, you sound severely undermanned."

"We are," admitted Murrue. "The _Archangel_ can be run by a very small bridge crew, but even still…"

"Well, I was thinking I might be able to help out there," said Mir.

"Wait, what?!" Murrue wasn't the only one caught off-guard— _everyone_ was staring at the young brunette in surprise. Makoto's eyes narrowed a bit though.

"This ship was based on Orb technology," said Mir. "Am I wrong? If not, then the basic system should be something I'm familiar with from my work interning at the tech college. I should be able to help out at least a little." Murrue bit her lip uncertainly.

"Miriallia, you really don't…" started Tolle, only to be cut off by his friend.

"Maybe not, but I know I can help, so I want to," she said. Murrue let out a sigh.

"Very well," she said. "Then please follow me. We should hurry." She turned and started down the corridor.

"Right," said Mir, following after her, just dodging the hand Tolle reached out towards her. Within seconds, the two brunettes were out of sight. Then, looking up from the ground suddenly, Kira made a snap decision.

"I'll do it," he said, turning to Makoto. "I'll fight." The redhead frowned at her childhood friend.

"Kira-san… are you sure about that?"

"Yes. I'm sure."

Makoto nodded, reluctantly, as she hopped down from the bunk.

"Then, follow me you two," she said, starting past the group. "The rest of you, do as Ramius-chūi said and bunker down." As the redhead broke into a brisk walk down the corridor, Kira and Ayane started after her.

Once all the "volunteers" were gone, Sai turned towards the others, focusing first on Sora.

"You sure about letting her go out there?" he asked.

"It's not like I could stop her," said Sora, glancing at Misako, who was looking pretty uncertain of herself now that Ayane was gone. "Neither of us could."

"I should've tried," murmured Misako. "Letting either of you risk your lives just because you happen to be Coordinators… Makoto-san and Kira too." She closed her eyes before letting out a small, frustrated snarl. "Damn it, I want to be the one going out there, but there's just no way…" After all, unlike Kira, Makoto, Sora, and Ayane, Misako and Sai were both Naturals. Brilliant, sure, but nevertheless incapable of piloting mobile suits like their friends could.

"Mir…" murmured Tolle.

"Like her, do you?" asked Sai, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose slightly. Tolle glanced away. "Ah, but she doesn't feel the same."

"Shut up."

* * *

The Bridge

"Wait, what is she doing here?" demanded Natarle when Murrue entered the bridge with Miriallia.

"She offered to help out and our situation is bad enough that I accepted," replied the lieutenant.

"If nothing else, I should be able to handle communications," said Mir. "It's not complicated and even that would help, right?" Mu glanced at her with an odd expression for a brief second before looking away.

"That will be fine," said Murrue, pointing the younger brunette at the left chair behind the captain's seat. "That station handles communications and hangar control." Mir gave a quick nod before rushing to the empty station while Murrue moved to the captain's chair. "Chief Neumann, take off immediately. Lieutenant La Flaga, please take control of the weapons and sensors. Ensign Badgiruel, operations and the electronic warfare stations."

"Yes Captain," said Natarle, sitting down in the front most of the two electronic warfare stations on the left side of the CIC while Mu sat down at the fire control station, the forward-most of the two stations on the right of the CIC.

* * *

Outside Heliopolis

Athrun knew that he'd be in serious trouble for what he did, but… he needed answers. So, with no GINNs available to fly, Athrun had commandeered the Aegis he'd stolen earlier after confirming that the data extraction on it had finished.

He had doubts that anything he said or did would placate his commander, but even still, Athrun needed to know if what he'd seen and heard was real. If Kira really had gone over to the Earth Forces…

" _Alright, we're here,_ " said Miguel. " _Time to make the damn Naturals pay for underestimating us!_ "

Athrun shifted slightly at that—Miguel was speaking solely for wounded pride and a small part of Athrun remembered lessons about just how dangerous that really was…

* * *

The _Archangel_ Hangar

" _Wait, Kira?!_ "

"Ah… Miriallia…"

" _Kira, what are you doing?_ "

The brunet hesitated briefly, so Makoto decided to answer for him.

"Kira-san volunteered just after you left," she said. "I think what you said might've gotten to him." Kira said nothing to that.

" _Well… okay then. Can all three of you hear me?_ "

"Yes," said Kira.

"Loud and clear," added Ayane.

"Acknowledged," said Makoto.

" _Okay, good,_ " said Mir, settling into a slightly more professional tone. " _I'll be acting as comm. and hangar control, keeping the squad coordinated. We'll load the Strike and Dauntless first, and I'll be equipping the Strike with the Sword module for close-quarters combat. Your mainframe should have the data._ "

"Yeah, it's all here," said Kira, pulling up the information on the Sword Striker module.

" _Officer Murdoch says that the CIWS of all three machines are fully loaded and that the Dauntless's Drache have been loaded._ "

"That's correct," said Makoto as she added an ammo counter to the HUD of her main view screen. "Four hundred and eighty rounds per Igelstellung, twelve rounds per Drache. X206 Dauntless is combat ready."

" _Roger that. Ayane, the Adamant is apparently primarily armed with heavy weapons, so you're going to have to make do with a basic equipment load out and a beam rifle. Will that be fine?_ "

"I went over everything on the OS with Kira and Murdoch," said Ayane. "I should be able to handle this much."

" _Good._ " Mir paused briefly. " _Lieutenant La Flaga says it's time. ZAFT mobile suits have just entered the colony armed with anti-fortress artillery. Also, they've deployed one of the stolen prototypes._ "

"Shit," muttered Makoto.

" _We can't waste anymore time, go ahead and launch!_ "

Kira did as told, pushing the controls and sending the launch signal to the catapult, blasting the Strike out of the _Archangel_.

"Arata Makoto, Dauntless, sortieing!" With that, the Dauntless launched, only a second behind the Strike. On the bridge, Mir was already inputting the commands to move the Adamant to the launch catapult.

A moment later, the Adamant joined the Strike and Dauntless, the three floating in front of the _Archangel_ , staring at the six approaching enemy mobile suits.

"Five GINNs and the Aegis," murmured Makoto. "Looking at it, the Phase Shift should withstand even that anti-fortress weaponry, but the Aegis's beam weapons will cut right through it. Don't get reckless, and no matter what the specs say, try not to let yourselves get hit by the GINNs either."

Three GINNs and the Aegis immediately charged forward to intercept the trio from the _Archangel_ while the last two GINNs moved around to attack the white warship and battle was joined.

Kira hefted the Strike's massive anti-ship sword, activating the beam blade along its edge. One of the GINNs aimed at him and fired off a round from its Cattus bazooka, with Kira instinctively dodging, only for the round to strike a support cable, snapping it. The brunet gasped in horror, turning a glare on the GINN and charging straight at it, swinging his sword wildly, but the GINN deftly dodged his slashes. Then, he saw the Aegis flying towards him and immediately backed away.

Nearby, Ayane pointed her rifle at a GINN carrying Canus missiles. She snapped off a shot, but she didn't have a proper lock and the beam flew wide of its target and struck the far end of the colony, but did minimal damage to the wall due to heavy atmospheric bloom.

"Damn it," she muttered as the GINN fired a single Canus missile at her. The blue-haired girl let the auto-tracking of the Adamant CIWS do its work, automatically attempting to shoot down the missile and quickly finding the mark. But then the GINN flew in from behind the explosion and slammed its legs into the Adamant's torso, sending Ayane flying through the air, grip on her rifle lost in the process before the Adamant crashed into the ground.

In the GINN, Liza Farkas took aim at the dust cloud where the Adamant had impacted and fired off a second missile.

Meanwhile, Miguel fired off a round from his Cattus at the Dauntless, only to see it shot down by the prototype's CIWS.

"Fine then, let's see you deal with this you bitch!" shouted Miguel, firing off three Pardus missiles all at once.

"Not a chance!" said Makoto, rearing back the Dauntless's right arm, holding its Exia sword, as if she were about to punch something… then threw the arm forward in exactly that manner, pulling the trigger on her right Drache at the same time. A small mass of beams burst out of the tube built into her right guard, quickly spreading wide like a shotgun blast and piercing all three missiles.

The sight of what just happened left Miguel stunned for a few seconds, allowing Makoto to fly the Dauntless in close to him. In a slight panic, Miguel began to fly backwards away from her, firing off a haphazard shot from his Cattus. Makoto lashed out with her left Drache, the blast catching the Cattus and head of the GINN, destroying both. Badly jostled, Miguel ended up firing off another three Pardus missiles, all of which hit the Dauntless head on and knocked Makoto away, giving her opponent a chance to recover, draw his machine gun and sword, and prepare to continue the fight with his secondary and backup cameras.

Not far away, Kira continued his attempts to attack Curtis while evading the Aegis, Athrun unwilling to put a lot of effort into the fight.

" _Athrun, what's wrong with you? You disobeyed orders by coming here, so at least make yourself useful! Get behind him!_ "

"Ah… yeah…" The Aegis flew in a long arc around the Strike, bringing itself into a flanking position. Now with enemies on both sides, Kira grabbed the Midas Messer beam boomerang (who had thought up a weapon like that anyway?) and tossed it at the GINN. Curtis slipped away from the thrown weapon and readied his Cattus, unaware of the micro thrusters built into the weapon that helped swing it around… and slice through his GINN's legs from behind.

"What the…?!"

The distraction was all Kira needed and the Schwert Gewehr sliced the GINN in half.

"CURTIS!" cried Athrun.

* * *

Meanwhile **  
**

The anti-fortress missile hit the Adamant head-on… which made Liza decidedly terrified when the prototype leapt at her, completely unscathed by the missile.

"What the hell?! How can a mobile suit withstand that kind of hit?!"

For her own part, Ayane was just as surprised as her opponent, but she'd had a few extra seconds to recover from the shock, despite also being badly jostled by the impact.

"Just stop it now!" screamed Ayane as she charged the GINN, beam saber in hand. She lashed out, the GINN dodging back at the last instant, but the saber cut through the right arm and both Canus missiles.

Liza attempted to draw her sword to defend herself, but then Ayane took another quick slash, bisecting the GINN. Liza's screams echoed over the ZAFT comm. lines as the upper half of her GINN exploded.

As this was taking place, Miguel tried everything to take down the Dauntless, firing barrage after barrage of missiles at her and letting loose at full-auto. The shots that did connect didn't even scratch the armor. The Dauntless flew in close, swinging its sword at him.

The blond ZAFT ace lifted his sword to parry the strike, but then a beam of energy engulfed the blade and sliced right through his sword, taking out his left arm as well. Eyes widening as the Dauntless lashed out for another punch, Miguel thought he saw his life flash before his eyes.

 _Sorry little brother…_

Makoto fired another shot from the Drache at point-blank range into the GINN's torso, blasting apart almost the entire green mobile suit in an instant. The redhead Orb pilot panted slightly from exertion, taking a few seconds to gather herself before turning her attention to the rest of the battle.

" _Kira? Kira Yamato?_ " The Strike and the Aegis faced each other, the former with its sword held at the ready and the latter with its rifle trained on its foe. " _So it is you, isn't it Kira?!_ "

"Athrun Zala?" said Kira. "What the hell are you doing here?!"

" _You should talk! What are you doing in that thing?!_ "

* * *

The _Vesalius_

Rau stared solemnly out the viewport at Heliopolis. The damage it had taken had been extensive before… but it was likely nothing compared to the damage from that cannon and the battle taking place inside.

"Commander…" murmured Ades.

He received no reply as Rau continued to stare at Heliopolis… and the expanding rings now surrounding it, the hundreds of colony lifeboats deploying to save those who had reached shelter.

The meaning of that sight was lost on no one.

* * *

Heliopolis

It was when she turned her attention away from her defeated foe that Makoto finally became aware of the extent of the damage, just as a blast from the _Archangel_ took out the last GINN… but heat from the explosion washed over the central shaft and a nearby cable and triggered a secondary explosion. Makoto's eyes widened in horror as she watched the central shaft shake, sending vibrations through more cables, and the snapped cable descended towards the outer wall over what seemed a torturously long period of time.

Then the cable hit the ground full force, sending new tremors through the wall and causing several more cables to snap. The process repeated itself, over and over and faster and faster before the horrified eyes of Makoto, Kira, Ayane, Athrun, and the people on the bridge of the _Archangel_ as Heliopolis began to come apart.

Then the worst finally happened: the central shaft snapped apart. When it did, sections of Heliopolis began to tear away from one another at the seams as the colony was destroyed by its own rotation with no anchor to hold the pieces together.

The atmosphere quickly began pouring out through the new openings, creating massive gusts of wind that rocked the _Archangel_ like a rickety sailing ship while tearing the mobile suits away from one another and towards the collapsing walls.

" _Kira, no!_ "

" _Kira, are you okay? Kira!_ "

" _Makoto, Ayane, Kira! Please respond!_ "

" _Athrun!_ "

Makoto said nothing though, did nothing, simply allowing herself to be pulled by the wind currents, clutching at her face in horror.

 _I'm sorry… I'm so, so sorry…_

* * *

 **Author's Notes: Ultimately, this is relatively little changed from my previous attempt to reboot. The main difference is Makoto remaining with the other Orb characters, because she's not here on a mission to observe the Alliance. As such, a scene is added of the characters discussing their situation and Kira and Makoto's abilities a bit. I hope you enjoyed it.  
**

 **In the meantime, I don't feel that there's a great deal more for me to say at this point. Rusty and Makoto aside, this followed pretty closely to canon, barring the bridge crew being even more skeleton and Miriallia volunteering to help out a bit earlier on.**

 **The story is going to stick relatively close to canon for awhile, but there are definitely going to be changes in the character interactions, as well as shifts in power levels. I want to bring the overall strength of the Gundams more in line with the UC setting, where they were powerful, but not basically super robots. As such, you will see regular GINNs putting up stronger fights as things go forward, but a standard GINN will almost never do the trick 1-on-1.**

 **Enough of that! Please leave a review everyone! I want to know if this story is still being appreciated or not!**

 **See you next week! (I hope...)**

* * *

 **Dauntless Gundam:**  
Description:  
The Dauntless Gundam is one of three prototype Earth Alliance mobile suits to escape capture by ZAFT. The Dauntless is a close-combat model with minimal long-range armaments, but considerable firepower at close-range, with its primary weapons being a set of beam shotguns mounted on the forearms and the Exia, a beam-emitting longsword featuring a beam rifle mode for mid-range combat. The Dauntless' X200-series frame also supports an experimental set of wing binders that give it improved mobility and speed, and are intended to grant it independent flight capability in an atmosphere. After the ZAFT raid on Heliopolis killed both the original and reserve pilots for the Dauntless, Makoto Arata, a reserve pilot of the Orb Self-Defense Force, became the designated pilot of this powerful machine.

 **Model Number:** GAT-X206  
 **Code Name:** Dauntless  
 **Unit Type:** Prototype Close-Combat Mobile Suit  
 **Manufacturer:** Morgenroete Inc.  
 **Operator(s):** Earth Alliance (Atlantic Federation)  
 **First Deployment:** January 25, Cosmic Era 71  
 **Accommodation:** Pilot only, in standard cockpit in torso  
 **Dimensions:** Overall height 18.94 meters  
 **Weight:** Max gross weight 79.82 metric tons  
 **Armor Materials:** Neo Titanium Ceramic Composite  
 **Power Plant:** Ultracompact Energy Battery  
 **Equipment and Design Features:** Sensors, range unknown; Phase Shift (PS) Armor; Prototype Quad Atmospheric Flight Wings;  
 **Fixed Armament:** 2x Beam Saber, stored on hips, hand-carried in use; 2x "Drache" Beam Shotgun Guard, mounted on forearms, can load twelve rounds; 2x "Igelstellung" 75mm Automatic Multi-Barrel CIWS, fire-linked, mounted in head;  
 **Optional Fixed Armament:** Bladed Shield, mounted on left arm  
 **Optional Hand Armament:** "Exia" Beam Sword-Rifle  
 **Pilot:** Makoto Arata  
 **Appearance:** Same body as the Strike, but has forearm guards wrapped around its wrists that look somewhat similar to the guards of the Wing Zero, and it also has the Wing Zero's head and wings (TV Series, not EW).  
 **Color:** Head, arms, legs, torso, and skirt are silver. The shoulder armor and joints are dark gray. The eyes are blue.  
 **Notes:** The Dauntless went through quite a few iterations, but I ultimately decided that I liked this one with the wrist-mounted shotguns (because I was a fan of RWBY prior to Monty Oum's death). Similar to the original Dauntless, it has the ability to fly in the atmosphere, and features a sword-rifle named after the mobile suit that originally used them in _Gundam 00_. Unlike the original, the sword-rifle here is more like the GN Sword II used by the 00 Gundam itself. Because of its wings, I decided to tag this as a special weapons "X200-series" instead of the X100 I used for the original. I hope you all like this design!


	5. Responsibility

**I am so, _so_ sorry this was late! (okay, not that late, and I didn't actually give a definite schedule)**

 **I'd wanted to post this earlier, but a number of things came up and I was pretty exhausted. Still, it's done now, and at over 9000 words, it is the longest chapter of this story thus far. A lot of that had to do with one scene that was massively expanded from canon, taking up a full third of the chapter all on its own.**

 **Anyways, that's neither here, nor there. Small announcement though: I've (obviously) changed the name for this story from _Gundam SEED Divinity_ to _Gundam SEED Awakening_. While I will still refer to this story and the sequels as the Divinity Saga (or sometimes New Divinity), I wanted each to have a title more in line with the themes and role of the story within the greater context of "Divinity."**

 **Make of that what you will.**

 **I might change a few more things here and there, but for now, what we've got currently sticks. None of the actual chapter content was changed by this decision.**

 **Note: Underlined dialogue continues to be spoken in Japanese. Eventually we'll see dialogue in a language other than English or Japanese, but probably not for awhile.**

 **Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers apply (see EVERY CHAPTER UP TO THIS POINT!)**

* * *

Fifth Phase: Responsibility

January 25th, Cosmic Era 71

* * *

The _Archangel_ , Heliopolis Debris Field

"Kira? Makoto? Ayane? Can any of you hear me?" said Mir anxiously. "Please, if any of you can hear me, respond. Anyone?"

" _This is Makoto,_ " came the redhead's voice suddenly. " _I can hear you._ " Her voice was raspy enough to be noticeable over the comm. line. Miriallia didn't need anyone to tell her why that would be.

"Can you get a fix on our position?"

" _Yes._ "

"Then please return," said Mir, "and see if you can contact the others." She then turned her attention to the rest of the bridge. "That was Makoto. I'll continue trying to contact the others."

Mu nodded in acknowledgement, but no one else paid her any mind, focused instead on the cloud of debris now surrounding them.

"I can't believe… it was so fragile," murmured Mu.

* * *

Elsewhere

Kira could hear Miriallia's voice, but he was so shaken by what he'd just witnessed that his mind simply didn't acknowledge it for a few minutes.

Then, as Mir's tone was becoming increasingly desperate, something cut through the fog.

" _I can hear you_ ," came Ayane's voice. She sounded as shaken as he was.

" _Thank goodness. Any sign of Kira?_ "

" _No._ " Her voice sounded terrified.

"I'm here," said Kira quickly. "Moving okay."

" _That's good,_ " said Mir, relief evident in her tone. " _Can you two get a fix on our position?_ "

Kira glanced over all the instruments before he found what he was looking for, and nodded affirmatively.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I've got it here."

" _Same._ "

" _Then return to the_ _ **Archangel**_ _. The officers are discussing our current options right now._ "

"Okay," said Kira, at the same time Ayane acknowledged. Storing the Schwert Gewehr anti-ship sword, Kira fired thrusters, pushing himself in the direction of the _Archangel_. However, seconds later, a blinking light off a large piece of debris caught his eye, turning his attention briefly that way… before he froze in surprise.

It wasn't debris; it was a Heliopolis lifeboat. But all of the lifeboats should have been ejected as the damage from the battle increased. None of them should've been in the debris field unless…

Eyes widening, Kira diverted course to the lifeboat.

There was no distress beacon besides the blinking light, so communications were out. Even if something had gone wrong with the launch, thrusters still should've brought it out of the debris field.

So, no communications and no thrusters… finding it would be nearly impossible like that.

Kira grabbed the lifeboat before continuing towards the _Archangel_.

" _Archangel_ , this is Kira," he said. "I've found a Heliopolis lifeboat. I'm bringing it aboard."

" _What? Kira, no!_ " said Miriallia. " _Bringing a lifeboat aboard would just endanger the lives of everyone onboard. You'd be bringing them right into a combat situation and involving them in this war the same as we've been!_ "

"But its thrusters and communications are out," objected Kira. "It couldn't even launch properly; leaving them here would be even worse than what you're saying!"

Silence answered him.

* * *

The _Archangel_

Mir's sudden shout about the lifeboat had drawn the attention of the officers, who stared at her intently, both Mu and Natarle's eyes narrowed just slightly.

The brunette pressed a button, muting the line as she turned to face the officers.

"Captain, Kira's found a disabled lifeboat," she said. "Thrusters and communications are both out. Permission to bring them aboard?"

Natarle opened her mouth, but whether to object or support, they'd never know. Perhaps Natarle herself would never know, because she quickly closed her mouth again, biting her lower lip so slightly Mu doubted anyone else noticed. All eyes fell on Murrue, but then she turned to the blond ace.

"Under the circumstances, I think we should bring them on," she said. "But… you're more experienced Lieutenant. I'll defer to your judgment."

"No need, I happen to agree with you," said Mu. "In that condition, anyone aboard that lifeboat will be dead before anyone could affect a rescue."

Miriallia nodded, unmuting the comm. line.

"Kira, you have full approval from the officers to bring it aboard," she said, even as she opened up both leg catapults to allow the Dauntless and quickly approaching Adamant to land. "But please hurry."

" _Yeah… yeah sure._ "

"Well, this disaster is getting worse all the time," said Mu, folding his arms. "This is no longer just a military matter, but a political one as well. We're gonna have to tread lightly."

"Is it really that bad?" questioned Natarle. Mu snorted slightly.

"Orb isn't a large nation by any means, and their numbers aren't significant," he said. "But that doesn't mean they don't have power. They have Morgenroete, Kaguya, energy, and the Dawnblade Foundation. If Orb takes a side in this war, then the scales will tip firmly in favor of whoever they align themselves with."

"But it was ZAFT that destroyed Heliopolis!" said Neumann.

"Maybe… but it was because your weapons were being manufactured here," said Mir, drawing shocked looks from the others. Natarle glared at the girl, while Mu eyed her contemplatively. The brunette input a few final commands on her console before unbuckling herself from the seat. "Kira's back. I'm going to head back down with the others."

Not letting them get in another word, she quickly left the bridge.

"Well," said Mu after a moment, "I can't exactly argue with her about that. In fact, it was kind of my whole point. Both sides bear some responsibility for this incident. Any good will we can foster is going to be invaluable."

"In other words, we have to treat the Orb citizens aboard with the utmost respect," said Murrue softly.

"If that's how it has to be, then very well," said Natarle. "I'll speak to the rest of the crew about it. But we must also ask that they be reasonable."

"Fair enough," said Mu with a shrug. "I'm sure they understand that as well. Our biggest asset is going to be mutual respect with Makoto. She's an Orb soldier; no matter her age, they have to respect that authority."

"But in the meantime, we need to decide what we're going to do," said Neumann. "All the heat from that debris will hide us from ZAFT for awhile, but it's not like we can just hang around forever."

The three officers shared a glance at that.

"Given the circumstances, I think our best course of action would be to head for Artemis," said Natarle. "From our current position, they are the closest allied forces."

"Maybe," said Murrue uncertainly. "But neither the G-weapons nor this ship have proper identification codes. On top of that, we have to consider the state of relations between our two nations."

Silence followed that statement.

* * *

Meanwhile

Kira let out a sigh of relief as he pulled himself out of the cockpit of the Strike and steadied himself against it in the zero gravity environment.

This wasn't remotely his first time in zero g, but it had been quite awhile since those trips into the shipyard factory of Heliopolis.

Looking around, he spotted Makoto and Ayane next to the Adamant. The blue-haired girl was visibly shaking, face buried in her hands, and Kira strongly suspected she was sobbing, while wrapped in the redhead's arms. Glancing away from them, Kira instead looked down at his left hand.

It was shaking.

In the next instant, the brunet felt as if he'd been hit by vertigo, releasing the Strike and stumbling forward, bile rising up in his throat, thoughts drifting back to Heliopolis, back to the moment his sword sliced that GINN in half…

"Kira!" cried a voice suddenly. Fighting down the bile, Kira twisted himself to look at the source of the voice, just catching sight of Makoto and Ayane doing the same.

He reoriented himself just in time for a body to slam into his stomach, soft arms wrapping around his waist, a girl with red hair and a pink dress now dominating his vision.

"Flay?" gasped Kira.

"I was so scared," said Flay softly, squeezing him a little tighter. "My friends… I… I got separated from Jessica and Misha and I ran to a shelter and then…" She shifted away a little to look directly at him. "Kira… what happened to Heliopolis? And what's going to happen to us?"

"Heliopolis… is gone," said Kira weakly. Flay gasped, her grip tightening.

"This is a ZAFT vessel, right?" said Flay. "What will they do to us?"

"No," said Kira quickly. "This vessel belongs to the Earth Forces."

"You're lying! There are mobile suits aboard!"

"He's not, Allster-san," said Makoto, floating over to the two. Flay gasped.

"Miss Arata!"

"These mobile suits belong to the Earth Forces," said the older redhead. "They're the reason ZAFT attacked."

"Yeah," said Kira softly, sharing a glance with Makoto. "Uh, listen, Flay, Sai's actually here as well! We should go meet him, he'll be happy to know you're safe."

"Sai? Really?"

* * *

The _Vesalius_

"And so on my head be it," said Rau gently, staring at the debris.

"Commander, there's no way the Council will overlook this," said Ades. "The destruction of a neutral nation's colony…!"

"How can a colony that was producing weapons for the Earth Forces be considered neutral?" said Rau pointedly. "Most of the residents had time to evacuate and we have the evidence of the Earth Forces involvement. If necessary, I will assume all responsibility for this incident. But it won't come to that. Not with the Athha in charge and the Sahaku and Seiran grappling one another. The real threat would come from the Imperial Family, but they're nothing more than figureheads. So, in truth, this really isn't as big of an issue as it seems." Rau turned to face Ades. "However, there will certainly be some consequences. Therefore, it's vital we do everything we can to complete the mission before any red tape can prevent us from doing so."

The blond commander then turned his attention to the sensor operator.

"Any sign of the enemy vessel?" he asked.

"Not under these conditions."

"You still intend to pursue them?" questioned Ades. "But how can we when we've lost our mobile suits?"

"Nonsense," said Rau, smiling slightly. "My CGUE is likely a lost cause, so we can strip that for the parts necessary to repair Miguel's machine. And, of course, we still have the five weapons we stole from the Earth Forces."

"You're going to send them into combat?"

"Why not?" asked Rau simply. "While Athrun Zala disobeyed orders, he did return with the machine. With the data extraction complete, I don't see why we shouldn't use them. They're clearly at least as powerful as our GINNs."

"But theoretical data and live combat are different things," objected Ades.

"Perhaps, but again, Athrun did return… and the weapons the Earth Forces kept have managed to defeat our GINNs. It's quite obvious they're very powerful indeed." Rau turned to the hangar control and comm. officer. "Tell Chief Lorentz to get Miguel's GINN up and running, even if he has to strip the CGUE to the bone. I also want him to apply an anti-beam coating like we have on the hull to the GINN's sword and shield."

"Yes sir."

"I also want you to send word to the _Gamow_ ," said Rau. "Tell them to expand the search area and have the junior pilots begin familiarizing themselves with the machines they captured."

The blond commander then pushed himself off towards the back of the bridge and the tactical display board.

"Bring up a map of the L3 area," he said. "Let's see if we can figure out what the enemy is up to."

* * *

The _Archangel_

"Miriallia! Are you okay?" asked Tolle as soon as his friend walked into the mess hall.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said. "So are Kira, Makoto, and Ayane. But Heliopolis…"

"We know," said Sai softly, nodding towards a screen on the wall. "We watched some of the battle on that. We saw what happened."

Misako's hand curled into a fist on the table.

"Damn the ZAFT," she muttered, before glaring at the ceiling. "The Atlantics too, for that matter."

"Maybe, but we're relying on them now," said Mir quickly. "And we're not the only ones. Kira found a malfunctioning lifeboat and brought it aboard. Assuming it was full, that's about four dozen more civilians." She let out a sigh. "I wonder what will happen now… especially with supplies."

Sai stared at her contemplatively.

"You're right," he said. "We're in a pretty desperate situation. We don't have any choice but to rely on the Atlantics until we reach safety."

"Maybe, but it doesn't mean we have to be happy about it," said Tolle.

At that moment, the door to the mess hall opened up, and Kira stepped through along with Flay. Makoto and Ayane were right behind them.

"Sai!" cried Flay happily, rushing over to him.

"Flay!" gasped the bespectacled blond in shock as she hugged him. Kira smiled weakly, shaking his head, even as Sora and Misako rushed over to them, Sora immediately wrapping Ayane in a tight hug.

"Ayane! Don't you ever do something so stupid again!" said Sora. "I can't believe I didn't stop you before!"

"Sora… can't… breathe!"

Makoto shook her head good naturedly before moving over to Mir.

"It's good to know everyone's safe," she said. "Any idea what the Atlantic officers are up to?"

"I left before they could discuss anything," said Mir, shaking her head. "But the good news is that the Hawk is pushing for them to be respectful of us as Orb citizens. He seems well aware of how dangerous Orb really is." Makoto's brow furrowed slightly.

"Hmm, that's good," she said. She eyed the brunette for a moment before shaking her head. "Still, we need to be respectful of them as well, no matter how angry we might be. They need to keep us safe to avoid angering Orb and rely on me to pilot, but we're also relying on them to get us all to safety."

"Wait, pilot?" gasped Flay, turning her attention from Sai to the heterochromic redhead. "What do you mean pilot?"

Makoto sighed, bracing herself for what was about to come next.

"I told you how I was trained as an Orb reserve soldier," said Makoto, staring at Flay. "What I didn't mention was the specific role I was trained for. Allster-san… they taught me to pilot mobile suits… because I'm a Coordinator."

The younger redhead gasped, shrinking back just a bit, a hint of betrayal in her eyes. The older girl sighed, looking away.

"I don't know why it is that you hold so much against Coordinators," she said softly. "But even still… does my being a Coordinator really invalidate the friendship we've had up until now?"

"N-no, of course not!" said Flay, shooting to her feet. "But… you didn't… you didn't tell me! You lied to me!"

"I suppose a lie by omission is as good a lie as any," said Makoto. All eyes in the room were focused on the two of them. "And for that I do apologize. However, what I was born as has no bearing on who I've chosen to be. The same is true for Honda-san… and for Kira-san as well."

"What?" gasped Flay, her eyes suddenly pivoting to Kira, who looked away uncomfortably, instead settling a small glare on Makoto. He wasn't the only one, as Sai, Misako, Sora, and Ayane were also all glaring at her.

She supposed she couldn't blame them; it wasn't exactly her secret to reveal, but…

"It's true," said Mir, drawing everyone's attention. "And Miss Allster, you really shouldn't hold it against them. Kira was the one who brought your lifeboat aboard, saving you and everyone else aboard. And with the situation being what it is, we're all going to be relying on him and Makoto to make it to safety."

* * *

The Bridge

"Bring us about on a course directly to Artemis," said Murrue, glancing at Neumann. "However, outside of reorienting the ship, maintain our current position." She then looked down into the CIC, where Natarle sat at the fire control station. "What's the status of the decoy?"

"Officer Murdoch says it will take them at least another fifteen minutes," said Natarle. Their plan was to fire a missile with a modified warhead on a preprogrammed flight path for the moon. With any luck, the modifications would make it look to thermal sensors like a much larger object than it really was.

"Very well, let me know when they're done," said Murrue. She then turned to Mu, currently standing next to her position at the operations station. With their extremely limited personnel, they'd decided it would be best if Mu were familiarized with the systems.

"As you can see here," she said to the blond, indicating one of the status readouts in front of her, "the _Archangel_ is equipped with what they've dubbed a black hole exhaust system. We believe it's a lesser version of the cooling system used by Orb's _Izumo_ -class attack carriers."

"Black hole? Who was the nut job that came up with that name?"

"No idea," said Murrue, brushing off the unprofessional comment. She figured it must've come from experience and his status as a mobile armor jockey. "Regardless, the system acts as a complement to the laminated armor, and allows us to efficiently flush excess heat. It has limitations, but this should allow us to cool the hull sufficiently to maintain a low thermal profile."

As she spoke, the brunette entered in several commands, shutting down power and life support to currently unoccupied sections of the ship, including the secondary storage. She also throttled back and totally shut down power to most of the ship's combat systems, routing them instead to the exhaust system.

Neumann, who currently had sensors and navigation tied into his station, was able to observe on the thermal display as intense heat seemed to pour out of the vessel… but thankfully, nothing brighter than what was already out there.

"With any luck, this will make us look like nothing more than a large piece of debris," said Murrue before turning back to face the pilot's seat. "Chief Neumann, once we've launched the decoy, you'll need to fire the main engines at half power for ten seconds, and then shut them down. I'll use the exhaust system to flush as much heat as I can, but I'll be relying on you to let me know when we approach the edge of the main debris field so I can throttle back the exhaust system at that time, and we'll proceed on inertial flight from there."

"A silent run to Artemis," murmured Mu. "How long do you think it'll take?"

"Best guess under the set parameters would be about two or three hours," said Neumann.

"Well… guess once we launch, it will all be up to luck," said Mu. He turned to leave the bridge. "I'll check in with Officer Murdoch, as well as the situation with the lifeboat. Then, just in case, I think I'll have a word with Lieutenant Arata and those kids."

* * *

The _Vesalius_

"Hmm, perhaps they hid among the debris and left the area undetected," said Ades thoughtfully as he examined the tactical board. As yet, there was still no sign of the enemy ship.

"No, I don't believe so," said Rau. "Call it a gut instinct, but… well, if you're right, we've no chance of catching them anyways. But perhaps…" He leaned forward slightly, eyeing an icon on the board. "Yes… of course. And to catch them… well, why can't a net work?"

"Sir? A net?"

"It's quite simple when you think about it," said Rau, inputting a few commands to the board. An icon appeared in the middle of the circle marking the Heliopolis debris field, then the icon representing the _Vesalius_ began to move in a curving path. A few seconds later, the new icon, representing the enemy vessel, began to move in the same direction on a straight line, then the icon for the _Gamow_ began to follow.

"The _Vesalius_ will launch first and wait here for the enemy ship. The _Gamow_ will follow them along the orbital course while evading detection. From there, either the _Gamow_ will overtake them, or they'll waltz right into our sights."

"Artemis…" murmured Ades. "Are you certain? Wouldn't it be more logical for them to head for the moon?"

"No, I don't believe so," said Rau. "The ship may have survived and they may have retained three of the prototypes, but we've hurt them." The blond looked at the captain. "Under normal circumstances, you would be correct, given the friction between the Atlantic and Eurasian Federations. However, the enemy is scared, desperate, and most likely low on supplies. This was a new vessel still in dry dock when we hit, not a fully operational and supplied warship."

"I see… that would make sense then," said Ades, with a slight nod. He then moved back to his chair. "Then, with your permission?"

"Go ahead Ades. I'll be in my office, and will discuss our plans with the pilots, as well as the matter of Athrun's unapproved launch."

The captain nodded.

"Bring us about," he said as the Commander left the bridge. "Prepare to set course for Artemis. Get me Captain Zelman."

* * *

 _Vesalius_ Crew Quarters

Amelia was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, brow furrowed in concentration even as a host of confusing emotions swirled through her mismatched green and violet eyes.

The young brunette had heard many things said about her. She'd been called foolish, arrogant, callous, sweet, clever, reckless, strong… but never, in her entire life, could she recall anyone calling her afraid.

But that's exactly what she was feeling now. She was afraid.

That girl with the red hair… there was something about her. Something… different. Something new, and unknown.

All her life, Amelia had known where she stood. Not even the death of her parents had been able to shake her from the plain and simple feeling of _knowing_ how everything in the world worked and where everything stood.

But in the pit of her stomach, that girl stirred feelings and sensations Amelia had never felt before, and because of it, because of that _unknown_ , she was afraid.

Turning over slightly, Amelia stared at the empty bed next to her own. She'd been sharing these quarters with Trisha up until today. The brunette didn't have any particular feelings for the purple-haired woman one way or the other, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to notice Trisha's absence.

Still, looking over there, it occurred to Amelia how she could resolve her issue, in a way that would even satisfy the others, for while she did not seek their approval for anything, she would hardly object to it.

She would kill that redheaded slip of a girl. And in doing so, she would restore order to her own, well-established and well- _known_ world.

* * *

The _Archangel_ Crew Quarters

The three security guards, headed by Petty Officer 2nd Class Roman Hathaway, had setup a station in the hallway of the main crew quarters in order to process the refugees and create a record for whenever it was that they got them to safety.

"You're a doctor, are you?" asked Hathaway as he went through processing a man named Mamoru Katsu.

"Yes, I am," said Katsu.

"The captain of this vessel has a minor shoulder injury," said Hathaway. "Would you mind taking a look at it later?"

"Not at all," said Katsu. "If you'll allow, I'd also like to use your infirmary to check over everyone else." He motioned to the line of people behind him. "What happened back there was… rough."

"I'm sure that can be arranged."

As Hathaway spoke, one of the other security officers, Petty Officer 3rd Class Garrett Buckley, glanced at Makoto, who was just standing at the threshold to one of the bunk rooms, green and blue eyes observing the processing.

Buckley didn't blame her suspicion after the way they'd raised their weapons against her and the others earlier, but he got the feeling that she was approving of their current handling of the refugees.

"I wish they'd tell us where this ship is going," muttered Tolle.

"They changed course earlier, didn't they?" asked Sai.

"Yes, but they didn't fire the main engines," said Misako. Of them, she'd spent the most time aboard spaceships, including the _Kusanagi_ once, a year or so back, when her mother had brought her on a tour of the vessel. "I think we're still in… in the debris field. For now."

"That'll have to change soon," said Makoto, continuing to watch the security officers process the refugees. It was as much to avoid eye contact with Kira or Flay as to actually keep an eye on things. "ZAFT has gone this far. I can't see them giving up now."

"It doesn't seem likely," added Mir. "Maybe you should go down to the hangar and give them a hand with the mobile suits."

Flay shifted slightly at that reminder that no less than four of the eight people around her were Coordinators.

"Now _that_ seems like a good idea," came a voice suddenly. Everyone looked up to see Mu standing outside. "Lieutenant Arata, Kira Yamato, Ayane Honda. A moment of your time, please?"

"If it's about piloting again, then you know where I stand, Flaga-chūi," said Makoto. She turned to the others. "But I can't speak for them."

"You can't really be serious," said Kira. "We're just students! We've gotten this far on luck!"

"Maybe, but you're also the only ones who can make a difference," said Mu. "We're so understaffed that I'm gonna be stuck on the bridge and, with all due respect to Lieutenant Arata, she won't be able to protect the ship on her own."

The others all looked down at that, a guilty expression flashing across Flay's face.

"I'll fly," said Ayane, only for Sora to tug on her shoulder.

"Oh no you don't!" he said, turning to face Mu. "I'll help Makoto out. Anything I can do…"

"No," said Kira softly, silencing everyone else. "I'm the one who built the OS. That tech is my responsibility." He looked at Makoto, uncertain eyes almost pleading for approval. There was sorrow in the redhead's mismatched eyes, but she gave the slightest of nods. Then, he turned to Mu. "I'll fly."

"I have experience," said Ayane, pushing away her twin's hand. "I've killed. I've…" Like Kira, she glanced at Makoto for a moment, her mind flashing back to the redhead comforting her in the hangar. "I've lost my innocence." She then stared pointedly at Sora and Misako, who both shrunk back slightly at the look in her eyes. "And now I can protect yours."

Mu nodded.

"Alright then," he said. "You three head down to the hangar. We'll be heading out soon…" At that moment, the deck shook under them just slightly, and the blond quickly amended himself, "… or right now I suppose. Anyways, Mr. Murdoch only has five mechanics to help him out. If you three can get down there and lend a hand maintaining your machines…"

"Okay," said Makoto, straightening up. Kira and Ayane both confirmed as well, and then the three left. Mu let out a sigh, turning back to the others.

"I'm really sorry about this," he said. "We wouldn't be asking so much of them or you if the situation weren't desperate."

"Speaking of desperate," said Mir standing back up, "maybe I could help out on the bridge again?" The others gaped at her. Mu frowned slightly, before nodding.

"Sure, Ensign Badgiruel might not be happy about it, but like I said, we're desperate. Come on, follow me."

"Yes sir."

"Uh, wait, sir," said Sai before either Mu or Miriallia could depart. "Where is this ship heading now?"

"To a Eurasian military base," said Mu. He shook his head. "We'll be lucky if they let us in without a fuss." He then continued on his way. Mir turned to the others.

"I can do this," she said. "Don't worry. Just leave everything to me, Kira, Ayane, and Makoto." With that, she followed Mu.

Tolle buried his face in his hands.

"Oh, Mir," he muttered.

"She isn't going to be in anymore danger than the rest of us though," said Sai softly. "It's those three I'm really worried about."

Silence followed for a moment.

"She said…" murmured Misako, drawing their attention. "She said… that she'd lost her innocence. So now, she could protect ours." She closed her eyes. "So now… now we can't stop her. Sora…"

Sora had no words of comfort; after all, he probably felt even worse than Misako, his gut clenching with guilt and fear.

* * *

The _Vesalius_

Rau sat in his office, working on the reports he'd be presenting to the Defense Committee and the Supreme Council. His mind was going in a number of different directions as he considered everything that had happened and how best to proceed.

The escaped enemy machines, in and of themselves, did not concern him all that much. Most likely, the Earth Forces had most of the data necessary to continue the development of those… remarkable mobile suits and, circumstances being what they were, that suited him just fine. Rau cared about only one thing above and beyond all else in the world, and these mobile weapons were of no danger to that.

What did concern him were the pilots. Amelia, he knew, had a gift that she didn't fully understand but which Rau did, and it was clear the brunette had been affected by that redhead who was piloting one of the enemy machines. But on top of that, despite the infiltration team's best efforts, the Earth Forces had produced two additional pilots, one of whom must've had a remarkable talent for programming, based on the report from Rusty and the preliminary report from Athrun.

" _Athrun Zala, reporting as requested,_ " came the young man's voice over the intercom. Rau suppressed a smirk. Speak of the devil…

"Right, come in," said Rau. The door opened, and Athrun stepped inside, offering a salute. "I was hoping to speak with you earlier, but I've been rather busy. This Heliopolis incident has caused a lot of fuss."

"Sir, I would like to apologize for what happened during the previous battle," said Athrun. Rau barely refrained from shaking his head, unable to help but think of the contrast between Athrun and that wreck of a man who had the gall to think himself a father to the boy.

"I don't intend to punish you Athrun," said Rau gently. "You clearly weren't yourself. However, I do need to hear your explanation for this… incident. Go ahead." Athrun looked down, frowning a bit. "I gather you saw something in that warehouse that precipitated this. Or perhaps something in Amelia and Rusty's reports?"

"No, nothing they reported," said Athrun. "I sincerely regret my misconduct. I was deeply upset by the events that had taken place, and failed to report the incident." There was a momentary pause. "That white machine… I saw who the pilot was. My friend, Kira. We attended the same lunar prep school. He's… a Coordinator."

"Oh?" Well, wasn't _this_ an interesting development. And that name… Kira? Right as Amelia was feeling uneasy?

No… surely, it had to be a coincidence. But internally, Rau remained uncertain.

"Yes sir," said Athrun. "I never dreamed we'd meet again like this. I had to find out for sure."

"I see," said Rau gently, standing up. "Irony abounds in warfare." He shook his head. "No, I don't blame you for your present state. I imagine you were very close to this friend."

"Yes."

Rau closed his eyes for a moment. Most likely, this was a coincidence. But somehow, Rau felt that he couldn't take chances. Opening his eyes, he turned to face Athrun.

"Very well," he said. "We're preparing to intercept the enemy. I'd intended for you to fly with the others, but in light of this, I'm taking you off the next sortie." Athrun gasped. "I feel it's for the best. You wouldn't be able to point a gun at such a friend, and I have no desire to put you in such a position. I'll head out myself instead."

"No… but, Commander couldn't you…?"

"Even if he was your friend," said the Commander firmly, "now that he might be an enemy, it is our duty to put a stop to him. I know it's cruel, but you have to understand that this is the horrific reality of war."

"Kira…!" started Athrun, before he managed to calm himself. He sighed. "He fails to see how he's being manipulated. Brilliant as he is, he's also naïve and good-natured. They're exploiting him, but he's blind to it. That's why I have to go back; I have to reason with him!" He looked at Rau with a determination the blond wasn't certain he'd ever seen from the boy. "Kira is _still_ a fellow Coordinator! I'm positive he'll come around to our way of thinking!"

Rau turned away, hands on his hips. He struggled not to shake his head.

 _Zala, what have you done to this boy?_ He couldn't help but wonder. Miguel and Rusty had related to him how Athrun hated war, and Rau knew that Lenore had been an advocate of peaceful dialogue and friendship between Naturals and Coordinators. Yet here was Athrun, defining allies and enemies by such weak distinctions as their genes.

 _It seems, Athrun, that you have forgotten that we are all human_ , thought Rau. _Flawed, violent, impatient, resilient,_ _ **brilliant**_ _humans. But perhaps…_

"I understand how you feel Athrun," said the blond. "I've found people who I once considered close fighting on the other side in this war. They wouldn't listen to me, Athrun. What if your friend won't listen to you?"

Athrun's face fell, and he looked at the floor, no longer able to gaze at Rau's masked face.

"If that should happen… I'll shoot him down myself," said Athrun softly.

"I see."

 _So, that's how it is… but do you really mean it, Athrun? Still, whether you can carry through or not, maybe you can learn from this. Perhaps there is still hope for you…_

"In that case, I'll allow you to sortie," said Rau. "But if you change your mind, please let me know. As I said, I have no desire to put you in a position where you have to turn your weapons on a friend."

"I understand sir."

"Then you're dismissed."

"Sir," said Athrun, saluting weakly and turning on his heel. As he exited, he paused in surprise to find Amelia standing right outside, but shook it off and headed on his way.

"Come in Amelia," said Rau, inviting the brunette into his office. She stepped inside, throwing him a brief salute. The blond barely repressed a chuckle.

"Thank you for coming," he said, returning to his desk. "I won't keep you long. I know how you feel about being at the beck and call of anyone."

"I know where I stand in ZAFT," said Amelia simply. "You're my superior officer and I am to obey your orders, regardless of my own feelings."

"Yes, that sense of duty has always been considered one of your strong traits," said Rau. "At the same time, I should remind you that you've never been especially good at hiding your contempt for orders you disliked. Therefore, what I am asking of you is a request, not an order." The brunette looked somewhat surprised at that.

"Understood."

A brief pause followed her statement before Rau leaned forward slightly, folding his hands in front of him.

"Now then Amelia," he began. "Since we arrived in Heliopolis airspace, you've been uneasy." She definitely looked surprised at that, and he barely concealed a smile. "Don't look so surprised—it's my duty to keep an eye out for all of you, whether or not you need it. Or perhaps you weren't certain yourself what it was that you were feeling. But regardless, I've noticed that uneasiness growing. I'd like to know if you've figured out what it is."

"Commander…" The brunette frowned slightly. "That girl with red hair. It's something about her. She's… different from other people. I can't say how, but I know that she's different, unknown… and dangerous." She laid a hand across her stomach. "When I think about her, it feels like my stomach is twisting in knots and there's this… almost fluttery feeling. I've never felt anything like it before."

It was taking almost everything Rau had to not gape a bit at that. Her description was practically textbook 'I have a crush on this person'.

"Le Creuset… I don't ask or need much from you or anyone else. But I want your help. I want to do it myself, because then I'll know it was done, but I need her to die."

Even Rau wasn't quite able to stop his jaw from dropping a bit at that. Did Amelia really _not_ understand what she was feeling?

Or perhaps he was misinterpreting it. Perhaps what the brunette was really feeling was fear.

Or… maybe that fear was simply the all-too-human fear of the unknown.

Still, regardless of his own desires to help the people under his command, he had a duty to perform. If Amelia wanted to shoot down that girl, then so much the better.

"You'll have your chance," said Rau, after a moment to recover. Not much could surprise him, but she'd done it. Adding in Athrun, that was twice in one day. "We're currently preparing ourselves to intercept the enemy warship. It's possible we've made a mistake in their course of action, but unlikely. When we do, I want you to launch in the machine you captured. The objective is the destruction of the enemy ship and mobile weapons, although capturing the remaining machines if possible would be preferable. Either way, you should have ample opportunity to finish the job yourself."

"Thank you sir," said Amelia, inclining her head just a bit, then turning to leave without waiting to be dismissed.

Once she was gone, Rau let out a sigh, and turned his attention to the entrance to the restroom, which was just slightly open. Rusty stepped out, a pensive look on his face.

"So… what do you think?" asked Rau. The orange-haired pilot shrugged slightly.

"It's a difficult and odd position," he said. "But… if one of the pilots is a Coordinator, then it stands to reason that all of them are. That changes things."

"It does indeed," said Rau. "At once, we have more and less to fear from them. They don't have a Natural-use OS, but they have at least three Coordinator pilots." He shook his head. "For now, our stance will be to treat this as a case of a successful Natural-use OS being developed. It will serve to motivate our troops to put a stop to them, and keep a lid on the situation until the Defense Committee can come to a decision." There was a brief pause before Rau continued. "With that being said, I was more interested in your thoughts on Athrun and Amelia."

Rusty sighed, running a hand through his messy hair.

"Well, to be honest, I worry about both of them," he said. "I doubt Athrun will be able to persuade this Kira kid, and the way he was going on… he's bought too much into this Natural versus Coordinator rhetoric. As for Amelia… well sir, I never realized she was so… disrespectful and disconnected. Or am I the only one who thought she was describing a crush when she talked about that redhead?"

"No, I was thinking much the same," said Rau with a small sigh of his own. "Being frank, Athrun is not healthy, mentally or emotionally. No doubt, it's a consequence of losing both his parents; his father may technically be alive, but that man has no business raising any child. As for Amelia, she lost her parents as well, and I don't believe they did a very good job raising her either; it may be hard to see, but for Amelia, it is exceedingly difficult to view others with anything but apathy."

The blond glanced at his computer side monitor, where he would get status updates. He found exactly what he wanted there.

"Rusty, it seems Miguel's GINN will be ready to sortie within the next two hours," he said. "It appears that the parts from my CGUE that were still salvageable managed to do the trick. I want you to take that machine, and take charge in the field. Keep a close eye on them; I'm counting on you to keep them safe."

"Sir," said Rusty, saluting him. But there was a small frown on his face. "Commander… are you sure you shouldn't be flying yourself?"

Rau chuckled.

"Now Rusty, I appreciate the compliment, but at this stage, duty demands I remain aboard the ship," he said. "When Miguel was alive and Heliopolis was intact, I could've entrusted my duties to him, but now… I need to be able to make my report to the Council and certainly I'll need to be alive if I am needed to serve as a scapegoat for Heliopolis. The ship, ultimately, will be a much safer place for me." He grimaced slightly though. "Not that I enjoy sending all of you out into danger that I won't be facing. I'd much rather be out there, but the _Vesalius_ is likely to be far safer than the mobile suits."

"I understand sir," said Rusty, finally relaxing from the salute. He folded his arms behind his back and stood a little straighter. "I will carry out my duties to the best of my abilities."

* * *

The _Archangel_  
An hour later

" _Enemy silhouettes detected,_ " came Miriallia's voice on the PA system. " _All military personnel to duty stations. Repeat, enemy silhouettes detected. All military personnel to duty stations._ "

It was now well past midnight, but no one onboard felt like sleeping, least of all the five refugees who had friends preparing to help the Earth Forces fight for their safety. As such, the bulk of the refugees were currently in the mess hall with a handful in the crew quarters, while the security officers tried to make them as comfortable as possible.

"Mir…" muttered Tolle softly as her voice echoed on the PA. He looked like even more of a wreck than the rest of them, which wasn't necessarily surprising; while Mir would be the safest of the four volunteers, Tolle was otherwise without friends, as he really didn't know any of the others. However, Sora and Misako weren't doing very well either.

" _Security personnel are to attend to the safety of all civilian refugees onboard. Repeat…_ "

Sai felt his gut clench at that. There were four refugees not included in that order, because they could no longer really be considered civilians.

"Will they be okay?" murmured Flay, burying her face in her hands. Fear and guilt had coupled to overcome any of her usual hostility towards Coordinators.

"I don't know," said Sai softly. "They'll be out there with only minimal support. There are only a dozen Atlantic crewmen left… and half of those are down in the hangar, three of them are security…"

"And only four of them are available on the bridge," said Tolle. "So they were desperate enough to recruit Mir…"

"And one of them is a pilot who could be out there helping them instead if they had more people on the… bridge…" Misako's sentence had started as a snarl, but then petered out, her eyes widening as a thought occurred to her. Sai had straightened up suddenly, a similar thought occurring to him.

"They were desperate enough to accept volunteers," he said quietly. Flay's head shot up, staring at Sai in shock.

Steel settled into Sai's expression as he stood up and walked over to one of the security guards.

"Officer Hathaway, sir," he said, tone oddly professional. It startled the soldier slightly. "Could I ask a favor?" As he spoke, the others, having also caught on, stood and approached. "I'd like you to call the bridge. Ask them…" He glanced at the others, receiving affirmative nods from Sora, Misako, and Tolle, all wearing similar expressions. Flay only looked at him with pleading eyes, but Sai wouldn't be swayed. He turned back to Hathaway.

"Ask them if there's anything we can do to help."

* * *

The Bridge

Miriallia let out a small sigh after she switched off the PA system, glancing briefly down at herself.

In all her life, if there was one thing she'd _never_ expected, it was that she'd one day find herself in an Atlantic Federation cadet uniform. Did they really have to be so stereotypical with the pink color though?

"Good job, you've got a knack for this," said Mu off-handedly, but most of his attention remained focused on the upper display screen, currently showing a 2d map of the L3 area, including the approximate locations of the two enemy ships, the Heliopolis debris field, and Artemis.

Mir looked away from Mu and down at her console. Before, she'd been seated at the communications and hangar control station, directly behind the captain's chair on the left side. This time, she was seated in the neighboring station, the operations station, to which they'd routed the communications.

Neumann, at the pilot's seat, was currently doubling as their sensor officer. Meanwhile, Natarle was down in the CIC, manning both electronic warfare stations. Their plan was for Mu to take over fire control when the battle started, while Murrue would take over sensors using the navigator and copilot station.

"Enemies in front and behind," muttered Mu, scratching his head. "Supplies too short to change directions and make a run for lunar headquarters… man oh man."

At that moment, Mir's console beeped, alerting her to an internal call from near the mess hall. Grimacing, Mir hoped it wasn't about any of the refugees getting uppity. That was the last thing any of them needed.

"This is the bridge," she said after activating the intercom.

" _Ah, yes,_ " came the voice of Hathaway. " _I need to speak to the captain or Lieutenant La Flaga. Your four friends have volunteered._ "

Mir couldn't suppress her gasp, which drew the attention of the others. She quickly muted the comm. as she turned to them.

"Um… it seems the others have decided to help out," she said uncertainly.

"What?!" shouted Natarle from the CIC as the other three gave her incredulous looks.

" _Mister Argyle and Mister Honda say they have experience from the College, and the other two say they'd interned there._ "

Mir knew that Tolle had done no such a thing. Still…

"I think they may be able to help," said Mir softly. She glanced at her own station. "These systems are a lot like what we have at the schools. I'm not saying they could help with anything complex, but…"

"Absolutely not!" said Natarle, emerging from the CIC. "We can't let anymore people get involved than already are!"

Murrue, however, had turned to Mu, her eyes asking him to make the call. For his own part, Mu had a contemplative look on his face.

"They're involved no matter what," he said quietly. "And if we can get just one of them on the sensors and one on electronic warfare…" He turned back to the map display. "Bring me up the specs on the enemy ships. If we have their help… I think I might just have a plan!"

* * *

A little while later

Sora glanced at Sai, seated next to him, before glancing over his shoulder at Tolle, who looked a little bit pale.

They were all now wearing Atlantic cadet uniforms and stationed all over the bridge. Sora and Sai, with their greater knowledge of electronics and computers, were currently pouring over the data on how to properly operate their new stations in electronic warfare, located on the left side of the CIC.

Tolle, on the other hand, was stationed at the back right station, the enemy search and detection station, which was right next to the fire control station… now manned by Natarle, which was likely the source of his heightened nervousness. Still, he had one of the simpler jobs of them.

Misako, meanwhile, was seated next to Neumann, who looked more nervous than she did, probably because of the fire that had been in her eyes ever since she'd been made to wear that pink uniform. She was now the navigation officer and copilot, a duty that actually entailed more than it seemed, as it was essentially a second sensor station. Where Tolle would be responsible for tracking the location of enemies and allies, and Neumann would be responsible for flying, Misako would be responsible for tracking their course, stellar objects, and the potential hazards of any course they took. Still, the station held more importance on Earth than it did in space.

Miriallia would still be pulling double duty as comm./hangar control and operations, but she'd stressed her confidence in handling the task, freeing up Murrue to focus on coordinating the inexperienced crew now under her command.

Regardless, the four new volunteers had achieved one of their quiet objectives: the Hawk of Endymion would now be joining Makoto, Kira, and Ayane as a pilot defending the ship.

That in mind, Sora straightened up, and refocused himself on his crash course in electronic warfare.

* * *

The _Vesalius_

Rusty sat in the cockpit of Miguel's orange GINN, making slight modifications to the OS, fine-tuning the machine to himself.

 _Miguel… I promise, I'll do my best to honor your memory_ , he thought. _But I won't be consumed by vengeance. I won't let the distinction of Natural and Coordinator cloud my thoughts, like it does for Athrun, Yzak, and Dearka._

" _We have matched velocity with Artemis,_ " came the voice of the hangar control officer. " _All pilots, prepare yourselves for launch._ "

Sighing, Rusty finished his last modification and stored the keyboard before hitting the switch to initiate the main startup sequence.

He'd be the first to launch. Somehow, someway, he'd found himself replacing Miguel as Le Creuset's lieutenant. He was the most experienced pilot they had left, barring the Commander himself.

"What an unmitigated disaster," he said with a faint, sad smirk. They'd captured the enemy machines and would now be able to prepare for the eventual—and inevitable—launch of the Earth Forces production mobile weapons… but they'd lost a lot of good men and women in the process, and had two more that were in potentially severe emotional danger, which could in turn lead to great physical danger.

And now, here he was, about to take charge and lead them into a battle where the potential consequences could bleed all the way over to influencing the course of the entire war…

* * *

The _Archangel_ Pilot's Locker Room

They'd been told to get ready, and it was now starting to really hit Kira and Ayane just what they were in for as each of them locked the collars of their pilot suits. Kira was wearing a white, blue, and black pilot's suit, while Ayane was in a suit that was almost wholly white aside from the black running down her sides, the only suit they'd been able to find that would fit her small frame. Meanwhile, Makoto had donned a mostly black pilot suit, with red on the shoulders, arms, and down the sides.

"Nice to see you in pilot suits," came Mu's voice suddenly, drawing their attention to where he was floating in a pilot suit identical to Makoto's, except for the purple and gray in place of the red. His presence came as a surprise to them.

"Flaga-chūi, what are you doing here?" asked Makoto.

"After you left, your friend Miriallia volunteered again," said Mu. "Then the others who were with you—Sai, Tolle, Misako, and Sora—volunteered as well." Kira and Ayane gasped.

"No," said Ayane, shaking her head. "We were doing this to protect them."

"And they want to help you however they can," said Mu gently. "They'll be in only marginally more danger now than they were before, but their presence is a huge relief for us soldiers. I'll be able to fly with you now."

"I see," said Kira, looking away. "But it's only temporary, right? Only until everyone's safe…"

"Of course," said Mu softly, placing a reassuring hand on Kira's shoulder. "This isn't your war. The only reason you're fighting in it now is to protect those who can't protect themselves. It's the same for most any soldier. For now, you're all soldiers… but you're also people of Orb. Once we're able to do so, you'll all be able to go home." He smiled. "That's a promise from the man who can make the impossible possible." Kira and Ayane smiled at that.

"Thank you, Chūi," said Makoto, speaking up for them as she worked on bunching up her hair. "Think you can help Honda-san with her hair? It's even longer than mine is…"

Mu laughed slightly while Ayane blushed.

"Sure thing," he said. "And while I do, I can explain our strategy to you three."

Makoto nodded, making a mental note to talk to Ayane about a haircut for each of them (though she wasn't sure she could follow through with it—it was irrational and impractical, but she loved her hair).

* * *

The Bridge  
Fifteen minutes later

"The _Laurasia_ -class is closing," announced Tolle. "Distance… six hundred."

"Just a few minutes behind then," muttered Murrue. "Chief Neumann, reorient the ship, pitch angle minus two, and two degrees port."

"Ma'am."

As the order was carried out, Murrue turned her attention to Mir.

"Have the Zero prepped for launch, and spray it down with armor coolant," she said. "That should keep its thermal signature low enough to escape notice."

"Yes Captain," said Mir, hands flying across her station and activating the hangar PA system. "Moebius Zero to the port catapult."

" _Roger that._ "

A moment later, the Zero was in place, and Mir had completed armor cooling.

"Moebius Zero, you are go for launch," said the brunette. Mu said nothing this time, simply sending the signal confirming his readiness, and then the linear catapult shot the Moebius Zero out at relatively low-speed, without any aid from the Zero's own engines, all part of the effort to maintain stealth.

"Resume previous orientation," said Murrue. "Begin bringing ship's systems back to combat readiness. I want full power to the Lohengrin assault cannons. We'll fire the engines and the Lohengrin simultaneously."

Silence followed as everyone carried out her orders, the lower section of the _Archangel_ 's forward "legs" opening to expose the massive heavy assault beam cannons.

" _Laurasia_ -class has now closed to four-fifty!" announced Tolle, nervousness leaking through.

"Miss Haw?"

Mir nodded. "Systems all green," she said.

"Ensign Badgiruel?"

"Weapons lock on enemy destroyer confirmed."

"Then start main engines! Fire Lohengrin!"

The ship shuddered slightly as her orders were carried out.

* * *

The _Vesalius_

Far ahead of the white warship, Rau smirked in satisfaction as his ship bucked to the side, evading the massive blast.

"I see we spooked them, and they fired off a shot," he said, eyes on the beams still cutting through space to port. "What incredible firepower…" He turned to the display screen, which showed his three pilots. "Remember your orders. I'm holding you to them. Go ahead and launch!" He turned to the comm. officer. "Tell the _Gamow_ to deploy its mobile suits as well!"

Down in the hangar, Rusty moved his new machine into place and donned his helmet.

"Well then, here goes nothing," he said. "Wish me luck, Miguel. Rusty Mackenzie, GINN, launching!"

* * *

The _Archangel_

The Strike was now in position on the starboard catapult with the Adamant on the port catapult.

" _Kira, I'm equipping the Aile Striker,_ " said Mir. " _It's designed for high mobility and includes a shield for added defense. The shield is even effective against beam weapons, so make sure you use it._ "

"Yeah… understood."

" _Ayane, the Adamant's heavy gatling gun is ready. I'm loading it and the ammunition backpack now. If the backpack runs out, you can eject the backpack and switch over to drum magazines. You'll find two on the Adamant's hips._ "

"O-okay."

" _The enemy has deployed six mobile suits, three ahead, three behind. Go ahead and launch!_ "

"Kira Yamato, Strike Gundam heading out!"

"Ayane Honda, launching in Adamant!"

The two mobile suits cleared the catapults, immediately activating their phase shift armor.

Then the Dauntless was loaded, as Makoto closed her helmet visor.

 _Flaga-chūi will launch a surprise attack on the enemy ahead, the_ _ **Archangel**_ _will outrun the enemy behind, and we just have to worry about stopping the mobile suits and surviving. Sure, no sweat, just keep those two safe._

Makoto paused a moment, staring at the display screen. Ah… so that's where Kira got that term from. She shook her head. It was silly, but if it helped… still, a smile graced her lips.

"Arata Makoto, Dauntless Gundam, deploying!"

* * *

 **Author's Notes: So, what did you all think? I'm trying to keep Kira as in-character as I can, but I probably went too far with how readily he ended up volunteering. Still, with Makoto clearly planning to launch, I think that Kira would step forward; after all, what he wants above all else is to protect his friends.**

 **As an aside, I only recently discovered that I messed up and forgot to give the colors of the Adamant. I'll try to edit that in later, but for now, I'll just say that the Adamant is blue, with white trim. On that note, you may have noticed in chapter three that I made the Strike basically mono-white. This is essentially a nod to the color Tomino had originally wanted for RX-78-2; the only reason for its bright coloring was to sell toys. :P**

 **I hope you all enjoyed Rau's big scene in the middle. It's interesting to look at his thoughts and try to frame them in such a way that it shows his real intentions, but does it in a way that wouldn't give it all away if this were an entirely original story instead of a fanfic retelling. Not sure if I succeeded, but it was fun and interesting. Not to mention, we finally got a look at my major ZAFT OC aside from Rusty "OC Stand-In" Mackenzie.**

 **Finally, I hope the OCs haven't been too overpowering. I've said before that my stance is basically "Tough" if you find them intolerable/overpresent, as I have to enjoy writing this before I can write it at all, but I still hope that they add to your enjoyment rather than make the read unberable.**

 **And with that said and done, we're off. Next chapter will finally feature all the Gundams in serious battle, and I'll present the Adamant specs at that time.**

 **Please leave a review! It's been getting better, but this story is still barely getting any reviews, and I can't really improve on the story without knowing what people are thinking! While my own style and preferences do take precedence, I still consider any opinions offered, and even a simple "good job" can be encouraging! (though I do appreciate a bit more thought than that)**

 **Say** **ōnara, min'na! Hope to see you all next Friday as well!  
**


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